NJPW Battlefield

Legacy Review

NJPW Battlefield

January 4, 1994 from the Tokyo Dome

This is the third annual Jan. 4 Tokyo Dome show, the line that will eventually become Wrestle Kingdom, and the first to not be co-promoted with WCW. As would be tradition for years with New Japan's big show, wrestlers from outside were still invited to appear.

As usual this is from the New Japan World archives so it's Japanese commentary only.

Heisei Ishingun def El Samurai, Osamu Kido, Manabu Nakanishi, Satoshi Kojima and Yuji Nagata in 12:09- Nakanishi and Nagata are both in Young Lion all black. I believe at this point Kojima is still considered a Young Lion as well, but he's in green long trunks. Heisei Ishingun was a top heel stable branching both New Japan and WAR. They're all in matching purple pants. I'm not hugely familiar with most of the HI guys outside the Great Kabuki and since this is your usual New Japan multi-man tag opener we can skim a bit. Kojima seems the focal point as the heels want to get their hands on him. Nakanishi takes a baseball slide and crashes back into the guardrail. Kojima tags in to a decent crowd reaction and lets fly with forearms. Nagata works some kicks, takes a Saito suplex and tags out. Samurai wraps up a Boston crab. Nagata hooks in a sleeper with a grapevine. Kojima hits an elbow off the second rope but gets caught in the heel corner. Samurai gets thrown out onto the raised entrance ramp and gets faceplanted. He takes a hip attack double team. Kojima gets a tag and hits some huge running forearms but walks right into a Kabuki superkick. At this point I had issues with the video playback on World, after several tries the best I can do is skipping ahead a couple of minutes to Nagata taking a couple of choke slams and getting pinned. Usual solid large tag opener from what I could see. **3/4

 

J-J-Jacks def Akitoshi Saito and Masashi Aoyagi in 14:07- The J-J-Jacks (short for Japanese Jolly Jacks) are Akira Nogami and Takashi Iizuka. Saito and Aoyagi are also Heisi Ishingun as evidenced by their purple gis. Their standard offense is kick, kick and kick some more. Aoyagi and Akira start and it quickly devolves into a brawl. Iizuka and Saito feel each other out. Iizuka gets a slap on a rope break to heat things up. An armbar attempt is blocked and Iizuka gets kicked into the heel corner. Iizuka is going borderline heel here, ignoring all the ref's instructions to break until the last possible second. The IG team responds by double teaming. Aoyagi has a kick flurry. Akira hits him with a sloppy faceplant. Saito suplex by, er, Saito for 2. Aoyagi and Akira have a kick/chop exchange. The Jacks go to a lot of leg focused submission holds, not a bad strategery when you're going against guys who are primarily kicking. At one point they both hook up legbars! After a double team escape Saito hits Iizuka with a spinning heel kick for 2. The IG guys are starting to have issues with their baggy gear, especially Saito. Eventually his belt comes off and he discards his top completely. IG hits a Hart Attack like spinning kick for another 2. Iizuka blocks a third one with a high knee and rolls into a single leg crab. Aoyagi kicks him to hell. Akira sees enough and illegally comes off the top rope out of nowhere. He tags in and hits a splash off the top, then hits a German suplex with a bridge for the pin. Decent. **1/4

 

Brutus Beefcake (w/Jimmy Hart) def Black Cat in 8:06- Beefcake hadn't yet signed with WCW and was appearing here as a freelancer. He's still got his red and yellow Mega Maniacs gear on. On the initial speed run Cat drops an elbow on Beefcake's back when he drops down for a trip attempt. Lariato by Cat. Hart's megaphone is echoing all over the Dome. Good things he's not using it very much. Great acoustics though. Cat gets annoyed at Hart and Beefcake hits him from behind. He chokes Cat with his leg and poses. Cat comes back with some stiff shots. A straight left floors Beefcake with a pretty amazing sell. He hooks a Boston crab in but Beefcake is right by the ropes. Beefcake wins a slugfest and goes into some eye gouging and biting, so it's clear who's playing the heel here. Big....er, medium boot for 2. Cat gets in some kicks to the hammy and tries for a Scorpion Death Lock. Beefcake fights out. Beefcake has clearly done all he's going to do as he hits simple punches on Cat for near falls. Cat gets a boot up in the corner and a sunset flip for 2. Saito suplex for 2. Beefcake dodges an elbow and hits a falling headbutt for 2. They both hit the ropes. Beefcake hits a high knee, and that gets the pin. That was about as much as you were going to get out of Beefcake at this point of his career. *

Super Strong Machine def Tatsuoshi Goto in 8:51- SSM has turned face and turned on his old Raging Staff heel partners, who I believe merged into Heisi Ishingun. Goto is also wearing IG purple. A very young Red Shoes Unno is reffing this match! This is the first time I've seen him in reviewing these shows. Yes, he is wearing red boots. After a rough lockup SSM no sells a corner lariato, and Goto no sells the rebound lariato to the back. A test of strength ends in a stalemate. Goto no sells open handed strikes. Shoulderblocks also end in neither man budging. SSM unloads some heavy artillery that finally staggers Goto. For a moment. SSM gets on a sleeper. Goto powers out of a butterfly arm hold. SSM hits a lariato and huge suplex. Bulldog off the top rope. Goto counters with a snap German. SSM blocks a Saito suplex and turns it into a bulldog. He hits a German for 2. Goto goes for the Saito again, but SSM twists in midair and lands on top of him! He goes up, hits a diving headbutt off the top, and that gets the 3. The no selling was fun and the counters at the end were decent, but overall there wasn't a whole lot of "there" there. *3/4

 

Mask vs Mask Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Jushin Thunder Liger def Tiger Mask in 14:26- Liger's celebrating one full year on this current junior title reign and would go on to hold it a record 628 days, but it's not on the line tonight. This is Tiger Mask III, AKA....well, we'll get into that. Classic Liger red and white tonight. He offers a handshake. TM slaps him instead. There's a lot of smoke in the arena, likely from some intro pyro. Man, I wish entrances were on here for these old shows. The Tokyo Dome stage is always amazing no matter the era. Liger transitions some leg work into an early modified surfboard. TM is up with a spinning kick. Liger works a headscissors. TM chops Liger down with some kicks. Saito suplex. Now it's TM's turn for a headscissors. Liger transitions into a camel clutch. He hits a tiltawhirl backbreaker and does the full surfboard. He bends TM over and adds on a facelock! That's nasty looking. TM eye rakes to get out. Liger hits some signature rolling kicks. He tries coming off the top with a dropkick but TM was also thinking dropkick and they both crash. TM tries an armbar and hits some ground and pound punches. He ties Liger up in the corner and dropkicks him. Backbreaker. TM goes for a moonsault. Liger dodges but TM adjusts and lands on his feet. As soon as he does Liger hits him with another rolling kick! A dropkick sends TM to the floor. Liger with a baseball slide. He loads up for a dive. TM moves to dodge and Liger handsprings off the ropes. TM sends him to the floor, and hits a dive of his own! Corkscrew moonsault from TM back in! He covers, but pulls Liger up at two! Bold strategy, Cotton. That never ends well. He tries a straitjacket suplex. Liger switches, runs, and hits a diving lariato. Powerbomb! He places TM on the top rope and hits a hurricanrana! TM kicks out! Ligerbomb! TM kicks out again! He goes for another Ligerbomb, but TM counters into a sit down cover for 2. TM places Liger on the top rope and dropkicks him onto the ramp. He goes up the ramp, gets a head of steam, and hits Liger with a handspring crossbody! TM tries coming off the top again but Liger dodges and he splats on the ramp. He recovers and hits a missile dropkick back in. German suplex! Liger kicks out! TM corkscrew senton off the second rope. He goes up top but this one Liger dodges. Liger goes up top. Shooting star press! That gets the win. After the bell TM unmasks voluntarily, revealing Koji Kanemoto. He angrily throws the mask at Liger. Liger walks over and consoles him, and they end up with a polite bow and handshake. This unmasking did nothing to hurt Kanemoto's career. In fact, his list of accolades is almost as long as Liger's: 5 time junior champ, 3 time BOTSJ winner, was the first junior to have major success in World Tag League and the G1. He did OK. After the turn of the century the Tiger Mask mantle would be taken on by Yoshihiro Yamazaki as Tiger Mask IV, the man still wearing the mask today and who has had arguably the best career as Tiger Mask ever. As for the match itself, it's good but not as good as Liger's previous Dome matches. ***1/2

IWGP Tag Team Championship: The Hell Raisers def The Jurassic Powers (c) in 12:47- The Hell Raisers are the Road Warriors stand in team of Hawk and Kensuke Sasaki as Power Warrior. The Jurassic Powers are youngish Scott Norton and oldish Hercules Hernandez. The Powers beat the Raisers for the tag titles the previous summer during the G1 Climax tour. Norton and Hawk start. The crowd is here for this one. Lockup standoffs. A double lariato is doubly no sold. Doubly. Triply. Hawk hits his flying tackle and fist drop. He hits a lariato off the top and covers, but Norton pops right back up at 1. Both sides swap and Sasaki and Herc have a shoulderblock standoff. Herc tries a corner whip but Sasaki blocks it and hits him with a lariato, then a misdirection faceplant. Hawk and Herc renew acquaintances (before this extended feud in New Japan the LOD and Power and Glory had a quick Wrestlemania feud in '91). Hiptoss blocks across the ring. Herc hits a piledriver. Hawk pops right back up. Powerslam from Hawk. Norton kills Sasaki with lariatos but Sasaki refuses to die. He responds with a huge lariato of his own. Norton with a back suplex and powerslam. Hawk and Herc slug it out. Hawk gets pulled to the floor. Norton goes out and posts his back. The Powers go to work on the wounded back....for a bit. Norton hits a neckbreaker for 2. Herc drops Hawk across the top rope then hooks on the backbreaking chinlock. Hawk comebacks are cut off. Herc forearms Hawk's back and slaps on a bear hug. The Powers hit a double football tackle. Now Norton hooks on a bear hug. Herc tries coming off the second rope but Hawk dodges (with Herc landing on his feet before splatting on the mat). Hawk doesn't tag. Instead he hits a tackle, then goes outside to the ramp. He walks up, gets a huge head of steam, and leaps over the top rope to tackle Herc again! Donnybrook! Hawk hits both Powers with a lariato off the top. Sasaki tagged in somewhere in there, hits Herc with a powerslam, and gets the pin to get the titles back! Everyone shakes hands afterwards. Fun power match. ***1/4

The Steiner Brothers def Keiji Mutoh and Hiroshi Hase in 20:51- The Steiners were near the end of their short WWF run and got rare special permission to work this show. After dropping the IWGP Heavyweight title the previous fall Mutoh was starting to work more under his real name rather than as The Great Muta. The Steiners have their stars and stripes gear on. Code of Honor handshakes at the start and the bell rings with the crowd all jacked up for this one. All four of these guys were hugely popular in Japan. Hase and Scott start with some extended mat wrestling, mostly controlled by Scott. After a few minutes both sides tag. Mutoh and Rick both get on all fours and stare each other down. Rick lifts his leg up like a dog taking a piss. Mutoh charges. Rick grabs him and bites his ass! Scott belly to belly suplex and Mutoh rolls out to think. Hase tries a belly to belly on Scott but Scott fights it and turns it into a takedown. Some more solid mat wrestling follows. Scott hits a butterfly powerbomb and everyone runs in. The Steiners hit stereo press slams! They clear the ring and strike their pose while Hase and Mutoh recover on the outside. Scott shrugs off Hase chops. Mutoh throws Scott out onto the ramp, then suplexes him on the ramp. He runs up the ramp and we get the vintage Mutoh ramp run and lariato! Rick and Hase join. Hase suplexes Rick on the ramp, then does the Mutoh run and lariato himself! Back in Mutoh puts Scott in a figure four. Hase slaps on an Indian Death Lock. After Scott gets out Hase chops. Scott chops back and hits a snap dragon suplex! Rick scoops Hase up and runs him upside down into the turnbuckle pad! Hase gets back up with chops. Mutoh with a snap mare/elbow combo and he slaps on an arm scissors. Rick deadlifts him up, ALL the way up and drops him! Hase comes in and hits Rick with a uranage! He goes up top but Scott grabs him from the apron. Rick pops up and gives him a belly to belly superplex! Scott in with Steinerlines. Tiltawhirl slam for 2. Scott shouts "He ain't getting up from this one!". He lifts Hase up in a suplex......THEN DROPS HIM STRAIGHT DOWN ON HIS HEAD WITH A TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER! The crowd goes insane for that. Mutoh tries to interfere to give Hase recovery time. He goes up top, but Rick meets him and gives him a belly to belly superplex! Scott drags Hase's corpse back in. Hase ducks a Steinerline. He doesn't duck the second. Or the third. But the contact is waking him up. Uranage! A second one! Scott kicks out! Mutoh tags in and hits a backdrop. Hase holds Scott up and Mutoh gives him a bulldog off the top rope! Mutoh with a plancha on Rick! Hase German suplex! Scott kicks out! Rick belly to bellys Mutoh on the floor. Hase gives Scott a Northern Lights suplex! Rick just gets in to break the pin up! Mutoh hits the handspring elbow. He goes for the dragon suplex but Rick breaks it up. Hase holds Rick down as Mutoh moonsaults Scott! Scott kicks out again! The crowd is absolutely freaking ballistic at this point. Scott Frankensteiner outta nowhere! Both sides crawl over and tag. Rick Steinerlines Hase and press slams him. Tiltawhirl backbreaker. He takes out Mutoh and lifts Hase on his shoulders. Scott goes up and gives Hase an AVALANCHE DDT OFF RICK'S SHOULDERS! The Steiners take Mutoh out again to make sure he can't interfere and hit the classic Steiners top rope bulldog. Rick covers and gets the pin with Mutoh just a fraction too late coming off the top rope to break it up. What a freaking match. It wasn't all tossing guys around either, there was a lot of solid tag psychology going on, particularly in the stretch run. Mutoh and Hase would remain a regular team and end up dethroning the Hell Raisers as tag champs in November. ****1/2

Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart) def Tatsumi Fujinami in 13:33- Like Beefcake, Hogan is appearing as a freelancer as he hadn't signed his megadeal with WCW yet. This is the third time these two legends have wrestled each other in a New Japan ring, but the first time in almost 9 years. Fujinami was getting into the latter part of his career, but was coming off his first (and only) G1 Climax win in '93 and would win the IWGP Heavyweight title for a then record 5th time the following April. For anyone not familiar with Hogan's work in Japan, he would work a completely different style over there. None of the classic Hogan shtick, he would actually wrestle wrestle. Code of Honor handshake before the bell and we're off. Fujinami works a headlock for a while. Hogan tries to back suplex out but Fujinami hangs on. He ducks a Hogan back elbow and gives him some armdrags. More Fujinami headlock. Hogan counters with a headscissors. After they get up he sells the hell out of a Fujinami arm wringer. Hogan grabs a handful of hair to run Fujinami into the corner pad. Fujinami ducks a blow, hits another armdrag and dropkicks that send Hogan outside. Fujinami teases a dive but pulls out. Reset lockup and Hogan works a headlock. Fujinami cobra twist! He tries to roll it into a cradle but Hogan's foot lands on the rope. Now Hogan wraps up a cobra twist and does the same cradle roll. Fujinami escapes. They do a test of strength. Hogan uses the opening for a knee to the gut. Huge Hogan chops in the corner as things start to escalate. Hogan suplex and elbow drop for 2. He goes for the legdrop but Fujinami dodges it and starts in with hammy kicks. Hogan goes to the desperation eye rake. Running high knee! He lariatos Fujinami 360 over onto the ramp. Hogan whips Fujinami on the ramp, they reverse positions, and Fujinami lariatos Hogan 360 back in! Fujinami knee drop off the top for 2. He locks in a Scorpion. Hogan grabs the rope. Fujinami dodges a corner lariato. Sleeper! Dragon sleeper! Hogan's in trouble. He just manages to squirt out. Corner lariato! HUGE Hogan lariato in the middle of the ring, and that gets the pin! Now, this won't be everyone's cup of tea but I enjoyed it. A lot of it was grappling on the mat, but given these guys' stature that works just fine to me, they kept the intensity up, and once they cranked it up a gear it got going pretty damn good. Some more time and it might have been better, depending on what Hogan's conditioning was like due him being in the middle of his layoff. ***

Riki Choshu def Yoshiaki Fujiwara in 9:04- Yes, this is Fujiwara as in Fujiwara Armbar. He was a famous pro wrestling/shoot fighting/MMA crossover guy and is here representing his own Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi promotion (who among the other founders was a young Minoru Suzuki). He and Choshu also have a history going back a decade of battles both in the ring and backstage. Lockup stalemates and Choshu slaps. Fujiwara cranks a headlock for a bit. Test of strength. Choshu puts Fujiwara on the ground. Fujiwara escapes and gets a leg takedown. Commentary got very excited for that. Choshu wraps up a body scissors and grabs an arm to crank. Fujiwara works into a mounted position and lays in some stiff ground and pound. Fujiwara tries for a classic armbar submission but Choshu won't let him extend. He stomps Fujiwara down on the ground and provides commentary while doing so. Stiff Choshu kicks to the gut. Fujiwara counters with a leg tackle and twists a variation of an ankle lock. Choshu fights out. Fujiwara ducks a lariato and grabs an arm. Kicks to the arm. Choshu constantly fights out of attempted holds and starts murdering Fujiwara with lariatos. At first they barely move him, but eventually he goes down and Choshu gets the pin. They did an excellent job of selling that like a real shoot fight. It was as intense as anything, the crowd gasped every time Fujiwara grabbed a limb, but for me it didn't get enough time to get it to that next level. ***1/4

 

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Shinya Hashimoto (c) def Masahiro Chono in 28:00- Hashimoto is in the first of three title reigns that would see him be the dominant champion in New Japan over the next 3-4 years. Some feeling out kicks at the start. Some hit, some don't. Hashimoto drops Chono with an open hand slap. Chono gets some headbutts and we have a kick exchange. There's several contested rope breaks that ref Tiger Hattori has to physically separate them. Hashimoto drops Chono with a shoulderblock, does a leg takedown and goes to work on said leg. Chono gets up, takes Hashimoto down with a drop toe hold and also cranks a leg. Headbutt exchange. Chono enzuguri! Hashimoto hits a thrust kick to Chono's throat and hooks in a single leg crab. Another kick exchange ends with a Hashimoto spinning heel kick. I just now noticed Hashimoto was bleeding a bit from the mouth or nose, it's all dried up now. Chono not surprisingly caught him stiff with one of those kicks. Chono lays in some knee lifts. Hashimoto responds with an "F you" lariato for 2. Saito suplex for 2. Snap belly to belly for 2. He hooks in for his DDT but Chono fights out. Hashimoto German suplex for 2. It's suplex city tonight, bitch. We cross the 15 minute mark and Hashimoto has dominated almost the whole way so far. Chono fights another armbar. He grabs Hashimoto's ankle and cranks it. Hashimoto is up with more stiff kicks. Chono slips out of a suplex and hits a Saito suplex! He goes up top. Hashimoto meets him and hooks him up. They have a stalemate for a bit before Chono pushes Hashimoto back down. Tackle off the top! Chono can't immediately follow up. He hits a Samoan drop for 2. Single leg crab, and he transitions into the STF! Hashimoto tried to fight it but it's hooked in. After a minute Hashimoto starts crawling so Chono switches it over into a grounded sleeper. Hashimoto literally pushes Chono's arm off his chin to get out. It's definitely his nose that was bleeding, it's gushing out now. Chono kicks but Hashimoto won't go down. Flash arm takedown! He hooks in the DDT again. Knee right to the testes from Chono to get out! Pure, absolute desperation. He rolls Hashimoto into a leg hold, kind of a calf crusher variation. And back to the STF! Hashimoto hangs on without quitting and Chono releases it in frustration. Hashimoto dropkick! Sweep kick! He hooks in a leg bar and stretches the hell out of it. Chono won't quit. Hashimoto rolling slam for a long 2 count. He tries for the DDT again. Chono wraps up a small package for 2! Hashimoto puts Chono on the top rope and hits a superplex! Chono kicks out! A flurry from Chono is cut off by a Hashimoto enzuguri. Chono brushes away a spinning heel kick. Hashimoto hooks in the facelock again, lays in a whole bunch of knee lifts to try to keep Chono from escaping yet again, and hits a vertical drop brain buster! He can't cover right away, and when he does Chono kicks out! Hashimoto sets up Chono in the middle of the ring. Running DDT! That's all she wrote. For the second straight year Chono comes up short in the Heavyweight title match in the Dome. File that one under "simple but very effective". You can quibble about it being a bit one sided for a title match, but I think they did enough to scrape the upper echelon. ****

 

Genichiro Tenryu def Antonio Inoki in 15:56- This was set up at the end of the previous year's Dome show when Inoki congratulated and challenged Tenryu following Tenryu's main event victory over Choshu. I believe this is also the kickoff of Inoki's four year long retirement celebration, the "Final Countdown". This is also a huge match in the ongoing NJPW vs WAR battle with the two leaders facing off and wrestlers from both promotions at ringside. Usual feeling out start with Inoki headbutts. Lots of positioning going on but it's all intense and never boring. Straight right hands from Inoki! Huge pop for that. Tenryu responds with an open hand slap and enzuguri. Inoki backs off from a slam attempt and pops Tenryu with another straight right. Inoki enzuguri. Sleeper! Actually it's a rear naked choke. Tenryu goes out like a light. Hattori backs Inoki up and has a lot of angry words for him. Tenryu's out cold. The WAR guys at ringside try to wake him up but nothing's working. Hattori keeps arguing with Inoki then grabs a mic for an announcement. I assume it's something along the lines of "this match MUST continue". Tenryu's still napping like John Cena at Elimination Chamber '17. Inoki hits Hattori! Hattori lets it go and tries to slap Tenryu awake. Choshu comes over from the New Japan side and slaps him! Finally he starts to come to and slowly rolls to the floor. Someone on the WAR side dumps water on him. He's on his feet but has no idea if he's in Tokyo, Saskatoon or Timbuktu. He chops one of his WAR guys! The others help him back in the ring. Inoki is quickly all over him. Tenryu fires back with chops! More Inoki enzuguris! He hooks on the Octopus! Tenryu manages to get out and hits a rolling kick. Inoki tries an armbar but Tenryu blocks it. Eventually Inoki stretches it out but Tenryu's feet are on the rope. Knees to the face from Tenryu and Inoki goes down to the floor. Tenryu chops. Corner whip, but Inoki comes back out with a rolling kick! He hooks on the choke again! Hattori tries to physically pull his arm off. Inoki breaks with Tenryu wobblelegged but not out. Slugfest. Another Tenryu enzuguri. Kick to Inoki's head for 2. Powerslam for 2. Tenryu powerbomb! He pins Inoki with it! I think that was a shock result for everyone. With that Tenryu became the only man in history to pin both Inoki and Giant Baba. After the bell WAR celebrates and while there's some tension with the New Japan guys Inoki and Tenryu show some respect for each other, and at the end everyone in the ring joins in with Inoki's traditional show closing shout. Well, that was an interesting and unique match. In a lot of ways that was the New Japan equivalent of a bells and whistles, smoke and mirrors kitchen sink match. It's another one that's going to have sharply divided opinions. I'm falling somewhere in the middle- I really enjoyed it and it told a great story but don't think it had enough to be considered in the upper echelon. ***3/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- New Japan kicks off the "proper" lineage of 1/4 Dome shows, minus the WCW co-promotion, in considerable style. Once you get past the usual OK undercard stuff, everything from the Liger match on delivers in one way or another.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B+

AWA WrestleRock

Legacy Review

AWA WrestleRock

April 20, 1986 from the Metrodome in Minneapolis, MN (home stadium of the Twins and Vikings)

Commentary: Ron Trongard

This was AWA's big signature show for 1986, hyped for months on TV and held in the good old Baggie Dome. It's coming off the heels of a couple of other big shows: Wrestlemania 2 was a few weeks prior, and the NWA/JCP held the first Crockett Cup tag team tournament in the New Orleans Silverdome Superdome just the night before. It would also turn out to be their last large stadium show as they continued to fall behind the WWF and NWA as wrestling went national. Future WCW stalwart Gary Michael Capetta is the ring announcer, I'd honestly forgotten he ever worked for AWA.

Brad Rheingans def Boris Zukhov (w/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassey) in 8:31- Typical red blooded American vs evil Soviet here, with the added grudge match spice of Zukhov and the Sheik hurting Rheingans' knee a few months prior. Rheingans does a little Soviet flag desecration before the bell before coming out hot. Well, as hot as the AWA's stuck in the '70s style would allow. After some waistlock switches Zukhov gets kicky. Gut stomp. Whip knee to the gut. There's lots of ringside activity with AWA officials moving all over the place, which is a bit distracting. Zukhov drops Rheingans over the top rope. Ugly clothesline for 2. Back suplex for 2. Rheingans activates comeback mode with punches and hits a backdrop. He starts working Zukhov's knee, including apron and post shots. Zukhov says screw your knee work and starts hitting shoulderblocks. Rheingans catches him running with a flash powerslam for the pin. Eh. It started slow but got OKish by the end. *3/4

 

Midget Match: Little Mr. T and Cowboy Lang def Little Tokyo and Lord Littlebrook in 10:01- A local TV morning talk show host is working as guest ref, Gary Lumpkin I think is his name. Capetta brutally Lillian Botches the intro, staying Little Tokyo was from Chicago before catching himself. Tokyo and Lang start. Lang quickly gets caught in the heel corner and spends the first part of the match little face in peril. He gets a tag after a fireman's carry takedown and T cleans house. Everyone gets in and the heels get their double teams mixed up with Littlebrook cranking Tokyo's head. Reset. T hooks Littlebrook in a full nelson. Tokyo comes in and accidentally hits Littlebrook instead. More arguing on the heel side. They work a little criss cross with the ref caught in the middle and dodging his way out. T airplane spins Tokyo. Everyone's in the pool again and the faces do a little rowboating. The ref gets in the middle and they all pile on top of him, leading to official warnings for both teams. Lang rolls Littlebrook around with a rolling cradle and gets him down for a 3 count. Mostly inoffensive. *1/2

 

Colonel DeBeers def Wahoo McDaniel by DQ in 5:03- DeBeers is very dedicated to his mustache twirl. Wahoo chops out of an arm wringer, works a test of strength into a takedown, and out matwrestles DeBeers. Corner slugfest with both guys ignoring the ref. Wahoo gets tossed outside and there's another chop exchange. Wahoo hits a back kick that really looked like a low blow. He tosses DeBeers over the top rope and the ref calls for the horrible rule DQ. They keep fighting after the bell. Next. 1/2*

 

Buddy Rose and Doug Somers (w/Sherri Martel) def The Midnight Rockers in 12:03- For some reason this match has been cut out of the official version of the show on the Network, but I was able to find a (crappy) copy of it on Youtube. Good thing too, I really wanted to see this as it's the Rockers' first major match. Janetty and Rose start. The whole gag with Rose and Somers is they're fat, seemingly out of shape guys that think they're ripped (but in reality are also better athletes than you'd think looking at them, which only makes the gag work better). There's a whole contest at the start of the match where Rose tries to impress Janetty by doing one handed push-ups and a kip up. Janetty responds in kind. Shawn tags in and challenges Rose to backflip off the top rope. Rose goes up.....wobbles.......not happening. He tries again and Shawn shakes the rope. Rose is crotched! Somers comes in and now we're wrestling. Amusing stuff. Nothing wrong with some comedy in wrestling if you do it right (see New Japan), and that was right. Shawn armdrags Somers all over the ring. Rose shows some good speed with Shawn but also ends up on the wrong end of an armdrag. Janetty flips out of a hiptoss and slams Somers. Janetty dodges in the corner and Rose posts his shoulder. Classic Rocker double arm wringer. Rose does a cartwheel to flip the script on Shawn. Janetty responds with a cartwheel and strut of his own. Janetty gets caught in the heel corner, but ducks and Rose punches Somers! Shawn blocks a hiptoss, flips over and hits his own. More classic Rocker double teams as they've been on offense the whole match. Finally Rose gets a double leg takedown on Shawn, slingshots him into his corner and Somers forearms him! The heels finally get some offensive traction. They choke Shawn with the tag rope. Rose diving back elbow for 2. Suplex for 2. Shawn blocks and reverses another suplex. Tags. Janetty backdrop and back elbow on Somers for 2. Powerslam. The ref counts 3, but Rose got Somers' foot on the rope in time and it's waved off. DONNYBROOK! Rockers double atomic drop on Rose and double backdrop on Somers. Janetty goes up top. Rose pushes him off and Somers covers for 3. Damn fun match, probably the best thing on the show. Why in the hell was it cut out? Somers and Rose won, and kept up with the Rockers every step, but the Rockers came out looking great, showing off some athletic wrestling of the future. ***1/4

 

Tiger Mask def Buck Zumhofe in 10:55- This is Tiger Mask II, AKA All Japan and NOAH star Mitsuharu Misawa (for those that don't know, the current Tiger Mask in New Japan is Tiger Mask IV). It's not announced but Tiger Mask is also the reigning NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion. As usual, I'll get out of the way that Zumhofe has been convicted multiple times for sexual misconduct with a minor and is currently serving more or less a life sentence so feel free to skip ahead if you want to. Code of Honor handshake to start. Tiger Mask takes the first exchange. Zumhofe escapes and hooks in an arm wringer. More reversals lead to a standoff. Zumhofe gets a leg takedown out of a hammerlock and works the leg a bit, hooking in a stepover toe hold and a Boston crab. Tiger Mask powers out. Dropkick for 2. More arm work and hammerlock exchanges. They crank up a bit of speed and Tiger Mask hits a crossbody for 2. Suplex for 2. Zumhofe gets a knee up in the corner and tries to take the mask off. Tiger Mask hits a spinning back kick. Zumhofe hooks in an abdominal stretch. Tiger Mask hiptosses him to the floor. Running plancha! That's so far out of the normal AWA style the crowd has no idea how to react to it. Zumhofe barely beats the count back in. Tiger Mask slips out of a slam and hits a back suplex. A somersault senton off the top rope finishes it. Tiger Mask carried this to something watchable. **1/4

 

Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda def The Fabulous Ones in 14:01- This is essentially one last ride for the old US Express after leaving the WWF, though they couldn't use that name as WWF owned it. They are mentioned as being former WWF tag champs though. Both Windham and Rotunda would soon be singles stars in Jim Crockett NWA territory. The Fabulous Ones are future Midnight Express member Stan Lane and Steve Keirn, best known for his early '90s WWF run as Skinner. He was also an important part of the pre-NXT developmental territory FCW. Lane and Windham start with some standoffs, staredowns and shoving. They crank it up and Windham counters a monkey flip attempt. Quick tag work by the faces. Windham hits a couple of deep armdrags. Keirn takes a walk to regroup. Rotunda cranks a headlock for a bit. Keirn leapfrogs, but Windham punches him out of midair. Express double dropkick. Keirn dodges and Rotunda goes chest first into the corner. Lane breaks out the martial arts kicks as Rotunda goes face in peril. Windham comes in to protest and Rotunda gets tossed over the top rope. He sunset flips back in but Keirn punches out. Front facelock by Keirn and they do the "ref didn't see the tag" spot. Lane hits a swinging neckbreaker minus some swing. Rotunda dodges an elbow drop and tags. Windham cleans house. Powerslam on Lane for 2. Keirn hits him from behind. The heels work Windham over as he now goes in peril. Both a Windham sunset flip and small package are missed by a distracted ref. The heels keep working the clearly idiot ref to work Windham over. Midring collision. Hot tag 2 to Rotunda. He gives Lane the old airplane spin. Keirn trips him midspin, and Lane falls on top of Rotunda for 2. Lane sets up a piledriver. Windham takes advantage of the ref being distracted yet again to hit Lane with an elbow off the top rope, and even though he's not legal he covers and the ref counts 3. Good, well executed basic tag formula with a smart finish of Windham using the heels' ref distraction tactics against them. ***

 

Giant Baba def Bulldog Bob Brown in 8:28- Baba, the founder of All Japan, was a hugely popular star in both Japan and the US, but was getting older and breaking down in the ring. At this stage he's in kind of that El Gigante/Great Khali limited tall guy class. Brown was a Canadian most known for working the US Central States territory. After the inital lockup gamesmanship Brown hits the brakes after a whip into the ropes. Baba no sells a chop. I think. It's hard to tell with him. Baba chops back. Brown tries a leg takedown but no dice. Baba does a rolling arm takedown and slaps on a headscissors. Brown gets some rope cheap shots and chokes Baba. I think Baba is selling now. I think. You almost need a microscope to see it. Baba hits a head chop. Knucklelock with Baba kicks. He steps over Brown. Brown eye rakes and bites but misses a legdrop. Baba does a Russian leg sweep and hits a big boot for the pin. 1/4*

 

Harley Race and Rick Martel double countout in 17:34- This is billed as a dream match between two former champions. Race, of course, was the legendary then-record 7 time NWA world champ and wrestling's biggest star of the '70s outside Bruno Sammartino, while Martel's near 600 day AWA world title run had been ended by Stan Hansen just before New Year's '86. Fast Martel hiptoss/armdrag start and he goes to work on the arm as per AWA rules. Race pushes out and hits a high knee followed by kneedrops. There's a long test of strength spot and the crowd starts getting noticeably restless with someone shouting "BORING". They must have heard him because they almost immediately hit the ropes and Martel hits a crossbody for 2. And right back to the ARMBAR. Race gets a headbutt on a rope break. Powerslam for 2. Martel slips out of a suplex and slaps on a sleeper. Race runs him into the top turnbuckle. Swinging neckbreaker. He goes up top but Martel slams him off. Slugfest. Race with back suplex. Martel dodges a falling headbutt, and hits his signature backbreaker/slingshot splash combo for a 2 count. Race hits a piledriver and falling headbutt. Martel kicks out. Race dodges a springboard crossbody. Martel reverses a corner whip and Race flips over the corner to the floor. Martel suplexes him back in. Race hits a shoulderbreaker. Another neckbreaker. Martel with a back suplex. They collide near the ropes and Race goes 360 over to the floor. Back in Martel backdrops out of another piledriver attempt. Gutwrench suplex for 2. Race small package for 2. After a dropkick and cover Race gets his feet on the ropes. Martel takes the opening to target Race's knee. Race gets back up with a bear hug, then turns it into a belly to belly suplex for 2. Martel reverses a suplex but Race gets his knees up on a splash attempt. Near the ropes Martel lifts Race and both guys tumble outside. They brawl on the floor and both get counted out. Lame. The match came in fits and starts but there was some pretty good stuff happening there. If someone in the back had put their foot down and said someone was winning it would have been a lot better. Both guys would be in WWF before the end of the year. **3/4

 

10 Woman Battle Royale- The participants are AWA Women's champ Candi Divine, her bitter rival Sherri Martel (Sensational Sherri), a very young Luna Vachon and, to be frank, a bunch of space fillers. There's nothing worth recapping here, it's a bunch of weak, dull brawling. It's so bland even Trongard runs out of things to say and doesn't even keep track of who's being eliminated. At four left Martel dumps Divine, then sneaks out of the ring and blindsides Debbie Combs after Combs thought she won to win a $50,000 check. That's like half of AWA's payroll. DUD

 

AWA America's Championship: Sgt. Slaughter (c) def Kamala (w/Skandor Akbar) by DQ in 9:54- Larry Nelson joins commentary to finally give us a second voice. What was he stuck in traffic the first half of the show or something? Kamala gives us the "I'm hungry" belly pat and we're off. Pectoral punches by Kamala that Slaughter sells like a truck hit him. He gets fired up and Kamala hides in the corner. Kind of sort of avalanche by Kamala. He hits a face down Slaughter with a big splash then wants the ref to count. Silly savage. Slaughter takes a corner whip by flying over the top rope. Kamala locks in the dreaded Armpit Pinch of I Hope You Put On Deodorant +1. After a couple of near falls Slaughter fights out. Akbar hands Kamala an international object and he whacks Slaughter with it, then puts on a Greco Roman throat hold. A Slaughter comeback is cut off by another shot with the object. Finally Slaughter has enough and fires up in the corner. Dropkick. He slams Kamala to a huge pop. Back elbow and clothesline for 2. Cobra clutch. Akbar gets on the apron, things get messy and the ref calls for the bell, giving Slaughter the match by DQ. After the bell Slaughter fights the heels off. Woof. 1/4*

 

AWA World Tag Team Championship: Scott Hall and Curt Hennig (c) def The Long Riders in 12:59- Before the match Hall is presented a trophy for winning a poll for most popular wrestler by the readers of "Pro Wrestling Report". Never heard of it but it must be based in Tampa. Hall and Scott Irwin start. The faces make a huge show of cranking headlocks. Hennig runs into a Scott back elbow, but Bill Iwrin walks into a dropkick. Deep armdrags. They have a bit of a chase around the ring as it's all champs early. Hall outpowers Bill. Hennig gets a blind tag and ambushes Bill. Hennig/Bill slugfest and extended back and forth. Bill tries to use tights for a leverage pin. They speed it up and Hennig chases Bill off again. Hennig is really looking like something special if he'd be fully let loose. And as soon as I say that Hennig takes a test of strength, flips Bill over and floats over for a 2 count, all while never breaking the knucklelock. The Irwins start pounding Hennig down to get a face in peril segment in. Classic 360 Hennig sell of a clothesline that commentary about comes out of their shoes for. The Irwins work the ref and double team. Bill misses a splash off the second rope and Hennig gets the hot tag. Hall cleans house. DONNYBROOK! Hennig gets tossed over the top, but bounces right back up to the top rope, hits a missile dropkick, and that gets the pin. After the bell the Irwins attack them with their supposedly loaded boots. Serviceable. **1/4

 

Mixed Rules Match: Scott LeDoux def Larry Zbyszko (w/Ninja Go) by DQ in 12:19- LeDoux was a former heavyweight boxer with a 33-13-4 career record, and had faced many of the great heavyweight boxers of the era even if he did lose to most of them. He was also famous for knocking off Howard Cosell's toupee on live TV after thinking he'd just lost a fixed fight that was booked by Don King. He's from Minnesota which is probably why Verne Gagne got him into the AWA, but he'd only wrestle a handful of matches over the course of '86 and '87. The rules for this are a bit muddled: it's 10 2 minute rounds, both guys are wearing martial arts gloves but can also do wrestling moves, and it's said in passing that they can win by pin or knockout. Larry "The Ax" Hennig is the special guest ref. Round one, LeDoux gets on a full nelson and pops Zbyszko with a straight left. Zbyszko, stop me if you've heard this before, stalls. He gets a leg takedown and LeDoux fights off him turning it into a pin as the round ends. Round two, Zbyszko hits a reverse kick. LeDoux gets elbow in the corner. Zbyszko gets an armdrag and dominates the rest of the round. LeDoux got a thumb in the eye somewhere in there. Round three is all Zbyszko. Round four, it looks like LeDoux's eye got fixed as he dodges a kick and goes nuts on Zbyszko with buckle shots. A hard right floors Zbyszko right as the bell rings to end the round. Round five, both guys tumble through the ropes and brawl on the floor. LeDoux takes a post shot and Hennig calls for the bell, DQ'ing Zbyszko. Another dumb finish, but I was wanting this to be over about halfway through the first round so whatever. 1/2*

 

AWA World Heavyweight Championship: Nick Bockwinkel def Stan Hansen (c) by DQ in 10:43- This is going on now because there's three cage matches on the show and back then it was a huge project to both set the cage up and tear it down. Nelson tries to get an interview with Hansen on his entrance but Hansen takes him out! Bockwinkel has Hansen's whip. Nelson makes it back to the booth, he's OK. Should have done a stretcher job, that would have been hilarious. They play cat and mouse all through the intros, clearly wanting to tear into each other. As soon as the bell rings it's on. Hansen pounds away in the ring and on the floor. Bockwinkel counters a backdrop. The first part of the match it looks like they have some minor issues getting on the same page. Could be just Hansen's wildness and infamous nearsightedness. Bockwinkel works a hammerlock. Hansen gets a slam and kneedrop for 2. Bockwinkel sunset flip for 2. He keeps on working Hansen's arm but without losing any of the match's intensity. Hansen counters with a headscissors. Bockwinkel sleeper! Hansen gets to the ropes. When he does they tumble outside and Bockwinkel takes a stair shot. Slugfest back in. Hansen drops Bockwinkel on the top rope. Bockwinkel reverses a suplex for 2. After a little fumbling he hits a backdrop for 2. The ref gets knocked down. Bockwinkel hits a crossbody and piledriver but there's no ref. Hansen dumps Bockwinkel over the top rope, which of course the ref got back up just in time to see and calls for the DQ. A screwy finish in an AWA World title match on a major show? I know, I know, I'm as shocked as you are. It was a nicely intense brawl up to that point though. Bockwinkel was one of those guys that could do anything and match any style. **1/2

Funny story to follow up on the world title: at a show in June Hansen was told that he was dropping the title to Bockwinkel. Now Hansen's first loyalty was to All Japan, so he got on the phone with Giant Baba (no word on what time it was in Tokyo) and checked with him to make sure it was OK. But as it turns out Baba already had challengers booked for Hansen in Japan, and told him not to drop the title. Hansen said OK and promptly left the arena with the belt, not to be seen again. AWA stripped him and Bockwinkel won the vacant title (using a tag belt in temporary place of the real one), but Hansen defended the AWA belt in Japan as advertised AWA World title matches. After AWA threatened to sue Hansen allegedly ran over the belt with his truck and mailed it back to them. Obviously Hansen was persona non grata in AWA after this, and AWA's relationship with All Japan was also strained and would end soon after. So all in all, maybe for once they should have had a clean finish and title change on a major show?

 

Steel Cage Match: Greg Gagne and "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka def Nord The Barbarian and King Kong Brody in 12:12- HUSS! HUSS! Yes, Nord is the future Berzerker. Brody is Bruiser Brody, but he can't use the Bruiser name in Minneapolis because there's already a famous Bruiser there. Snuka is making his AWA debut, replacing a "seriously injured" Jerry Blackwell. If the faces win, Verne Gagne gets the Sheik in the cage. Gagne and Brody start. Huge Brody chop. Gagne fires back but runs into a boot. Nord runs into a Snuka chop. Snuka and Brody have a shoulderblock standoff, with Brody hitting a big boot after. Snuka cranks up the crazy leapfrogs and hits a chop. I think Blackwell for Snuka was a slight upgrade. Snuka fist off the second rope for 2. Gagne uses the cage to come off the middle of the top rope. He runs the heels into each other but gets double teamed after. Gagne takes the first cage shot and is bleeding. Commentary says it's gushing but anyone wrestling in the NWA at the time is laughing at the puny amount of blood. Brody hits a piledriver. Snuka breaks the pin up. After a whip reversal Nord runs into the cage and Gagne tags out. Brody takes a cage shot. Snuka headbutt off the top. Nord breaks the pin up. Snuka gets double teamed. Everyone in the pool! The heels get whipped into each other. Double suplex on Brody. Gagne holds Nord for a Snuka headbutt off the top, but Nord dodges and Gagne gets it. Now Nord holds Snuka, but he dodges and Brody dropkicks Nord. Snuka covers and gets the pin. Pretty fun cage match wildness. ***1/4

 

Steel Cage Match: Verne Gagne def Sheik Adnan El Kassey in 3:54- Sheik doesn't want to get in the cage. Gagne convinces him by ramming his head into the outside of the cage and tossing him in. Sheik is bleeding more than anyone in the last match. Not much to say about this one. Gagne gets his revenge beatdown, Sheik gets some token offense, Gagne reverses a slam into a Paul Smackage for the win. After the match Gagne says that was his last ride, which was partially true. It was his last televised match, but he did team with his son in a couple of 6 man tags in June. 3/4*

 

Steel Cage Match: The Road Warriors (w/Paul Ellering) def Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin in 7:18- Even though this pairing were the Fabulous Freebirds in the NWA and WCW in the late '80s and early '90s, Garvin isn't officially a member of the group yet. The Freebirds had cost the Roadies the tag titles to Garvin and Steve Regal and they've been feuding ever since. The Roadies caught the redeye from New Orleans after winning the Crockett Cup the night before to kick off their mega push in the NWA and this would end up being their last AWA match. Hayes hits Hawk with a quick piledriver that Hawk shockingly no sells, then follows up with a dropkick and flying tackle. Hayes gets thrown into the cage and busted open. Well, slightly cut open. Hawk press slam. Hayes gets to his corner but Garvin walks away from a tag. Hawk and Hayes get on the top rope and slug it out. A Hawk headbutt sends Hayes to the mat. Hayes gets over again and tags Garvin's stomach before he can get away again. Hawk gives Garvin a Canadian backbreaker and Animal powerslams him for 2. Now Hayes walks away from a Garvin tag. Garvin manages to get Animal down with a shot to the gut and of course now Hayes will tag in. Animal hits him with a back elbow. Hawk bites at Hayes' cut. Garvin hits shoulders to Hawk's gut. Hayes hooks on the figure four. Hawk reverses it, then reverses a suplex. Tags. Everyone in! Hayes gets some knucks out of his trunks, but Garvin takes the shot and Animal covers for the pin. Not bad for the time they got, and the fact the LOD were on a quick turnaround in a very busy weekend. *3/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: The tag line for this show should be "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks". At 16 matches and over four hours, coupled with AWA's wrestling style that was already becoming dinosaur-like in the mid '80s, it's a *very* long show that I couldn't imagine getting through in one sitting (I certainly didn't). Trim out all the extraneous fat and there's a moderately decent core of a show in here. Not great, but decent.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-

In Your House 12: It's Time

Legacy Review

In Your House 12: It's Time

December 15, 1996 from the West Palm Beach Auditorium in West Palm Beach, FL

 

Commentary: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

 

Flash Funk def Leif Cassidy in 10:34- Cassidy (the future Al Snow) is flying solo after Marty Janetty left the WWF again after some disagreements over how their team was being booked. In a small irony considering who the champion is, Cassidy is using Sid's old Sid Justice entrance music from '92. Funk has a huge entrance with lots of pyro, the Funkettes, and a ton of dancing. He even gets Vince to dance, leading JR to become grumpy JR. "I'm here to call a damn match, not dance around!". When the entrance is finally done they play to the crowd a lot before hooking up. Funk clean breaks on the lockup and does some more dancing. They go to a mat wrestling sequence with Cassidy proving superior. Armwork escape tradeoff. They crank up the speed and Funk hits an armdrag. Funk leaps over in the corner, tries to springboard to the top but slips off, settles for a springboard crossbody off the second rope and almost goes clear over Cassidy's head. Lots of ugly there. Cassidy blocks a flying headscissors and Funk drops face first to the mat. A Cassidy belly to belly suplex sends Funk over the top rope to the floor! Somersault plancha! Cassidy goes up the ramp and gets a huge head of steam for a running clothesline, Great Muta style. Dropkick to the back of Funk's head back in for 2. Funk shows his flexibility by kicking out of a chinlock. He rolls out of a Cassidy powerbomb. Cassidy catches a leaping Funk and hits him with a sit out powerbomb. He comes off the top with a moonsault but Funk dodges it. A Funk rolling kick sends Cassidy to the floor, followed up by a huge dive from Funk. Moonsault for 2. They have a nice, long sequence of rollup tradeoffs all over the ring for near falls. Funk hits a step up enzuguri. Avalanche. Saito suplex. The 450 splash ends it. Very indyriffic spotfest where they hit their crazy dives and high spots, but it had some real sloppy moments as well and wasn't very cohesive. Funk seemed poised for a big new guy push but would stall out after this. Cassidy continued to mostly be a jobber but to my eyes came off looking much better in this match. **3/4

 

WWF Tag Team Championship: The Slammy Award Winning Owen Hart and "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith (c) (w/Clarence Mason) def (Fake) Razor Ramon and (Fake) Diesel in 10:45- There's a side story going of Bulldog being distracted and unfocused because that crazy bastard Steve Austin has been after him. Fake Diesel is Mayor Glenn Jacobs, AKA Kane. Fake Ramon is journeyman Rick Bognar, best known as Rick Titan from NWO Japan. The heel JR angle has mostly been scrapped, but he still roots for the imposters because he's the one that brought them in. JR also makes a comment about "none of these guys being 40 or 50 and they have all their real body parts", a dig at the (awful) Hulk Hogan/Roddy Piper Starrcade main event on the other side that same month. Diesel and Owen start cautiously. Diesel tosses Owen into the corner and hits his version of the trademark Nash back elbows. There's some fumbling around as two wrestlers from AAA, Cibernetico and Pierroth, come to ringside. WWF put together a short working alliance with AAA for the upcoming Royal Rumble in San Antonio and they're here to promote that. Don't think too many people in West Palm Beach know who they are though. The champs get distracted and we have a reset with Bulldog and Ramon. The AAA representatives leave without incident. Fake Ramon is a horrible seller. Now Austin is out to a huge reaction! Bulldog jumps out and attacks him! They brawl on the floor until WWF officials drag Austin away. The champs double team Ramon. Owen missile dropkick for 2. Diesel pulls the top rope down and Owen tumbles to the floor. Diesel posts his back and Owen goes in peril. The crowd starts getting behind him despite the champs' heel status because no one wanted anything to do with the imposters. Ramon hits a pumphandle fallaway slam. OK, that's a new one. Diesel hits a big boot to a huge "Diesel sucks" chant. Owen gets trapped in the heel corner. He hits an enzuguri on Diesel and tags. Bulldog runs through the power moves on Ramon. DONNYBROOK! Ramon hooks Bulldog up for the fake Razor's Edge. Owen runs in, gives him a spinning heel kick, and Bulldog cradles Ramon for the pin. After the bell Austin attacks Bulldog again. It was more angle than match to start with, was mostly dull, but that closing run was pretty hot. *3/4

Vince is in the ring and brings out Ahmed Johnson and his fanny pack for an interview. Johnson's recovered from his kidney injury and will return to face Faarooq at the Rumble. Johnson shouts his promo so loud and incoherently it's really hard to understand. The gist is he's pissed. The Nation of Domination interrupt, but are up in the crowd above the stage rather than going to the ring. This crowd isn't nearly big enough to bother with, see. Faarooq runs through his Malcolm X misquotes and calls Johnson an Uncle Tom. Johnson shouts some more back at him and end scene.

Video recap of the HHH/Mero IC title feud. Mero winning the title was all part of HHH's master plan, as he then used Mr. Perfect (straight called Curt Hennig in the package) to take it from Mero then sacked Perfect when he didn't need him anymore (explaining his departure to WCW). They're also starting to call him Triple H. All in all it's the first inklings of what would become the Cerebral Assassin character.

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship: "Wildman" Marc Mero (w/Sable) def Hunter Hearst Helmsley (c) by countout in 13:12- HHH is now coming out to Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th. He's also got the classic black strap back on the belt after it had gone white again during Mero's reign. Some feeling out mat wrestling to start. Mero hits a shoulderblock and goes full defensive end diva after getting a sack on Trips telling him he just tackled him with a lot of finger pointing. They mess up a hiptoss spot and have to do it again. HHH gets clotheslined 360 to the floor. Mero teases a dive then hits a double ax handle off the apron. HHH counters mounted punches by dropping Mero face first into the top turnbuckle. Mero backdrops out of a Pedigree attempt, sending HHH to the floor again. HHH hides behind Sable and gets a cheap shot. He gets a chair but Hebner takes it away. Mero gets a boot up when HHH comes off the second rope with a great Trips sell. Inverted atomic drop and flying clothesline from Mero. Trips flip! Mero with a running kneelift. Flying headscissors for 2. Top rope hurricanrana! He goes up top again but HHH pushes Hebner into the ropes and Mero falls off. Another Pedigree counter and HHH gets slingshot into the post. Mero slowly crawls over and covers but HHH had enough time to kick out. Mero moonsault for 2. Ref bump! HHH gets the belt. Mero cuts him off and hooks in the Gedo clutch but there's no ref. Another Trips flip sends him outside. Mero somersault plancha! Goldust comes to ringside. He and HHH have had some issues lately due to HHH hitting on Marlena. He hits both guys with the belt! Mero just gets in before the 10 count, getting the countout win. After the bell he hits the Wild Thing just because. Pretty solid match, crap ending. **1/2

 

Armageddon Rules Match: The Undertaker def The Executioner (w/Paul Bearer) in 11:32- The Executioner is Terry Gordy in a mask on the last legs of his career. Word is the mask was a joint decision between Gordy and Vince to protect his legacy in case he wasn't able to go like he used to. Spoiler: he wasn't. Armageddon Rules is basically a Texas Death Match, after a pin you have a 10 count to get up or it's over. Taker's robe is off and we're on! All Taker to start. Executioner goes upside down in the corner and into the tree of woe. Taker is moving around quick, all the old zombie Taker gimmick shackles are off. Gordy is moving....less quickly. Some token Executioner offense is cut off. Taker gets clotheslined 360 outside, lands on his feet, and drags Executioner out. A Bearer urn shot is no sold, but it lets Executioner hit Taker from behind. Taker gets bounced around all the available objects ringside. He counters with a short clothesline and pulls the ringside mat up. Mankind dives in! The heels take advantage of the no DQ rule to double team at will. They all brawl up the entrance aisle. Mankind goes through the house set! Taker throws him through the front door back out! Taker and Executioner go behind what's left of the set to brawl a bit, moving the set. It might have supposed to collapse, I'm not sure. It does after this match is over. They get back to the ring with Taker still being double teamed. Security runs in with mace and gang up on Mankind. Taker and Executioner go up the aisle again, to the back, and all the way out of the arena where the cameras lose them for a bit. Security puts Mankind in a straitjacket. There's a quick camera cut outside just to see Executioner roll down and go into the body of water by the arena. Hell of a time for a swim. In December. Taker comes back in and beats up defenseless Mankind a bit. Executioner also comes back in, dripping wet so I guess he really did go in the water outside, it wasn't a pretape. Taker hits a couple more moves, plants him with the tombstone, and it's over with very little drama. The rules were pointless the way the match was worked. Why not just do straight up no DQ? Gordy would cut his losses and leave WWF soon after this. Getting Foley in to do his usual crazed bumping saved this match from being in DUD or even the dreaded MINUS FIVE STARS territory. 3/4*

We get a very Angry Bret Hart promo with some words for Sid, but he's mainly sick of Shawn Michaels. Shawn's music hitting for Shawn to join commentary really sets him off. It's definitely a preview for '97 heel Bret. As of right now the plan was for Bret to get his win back from Shawn at Wrestlemania 13 for the title. That would change in a couple of months when Shawn misplaced a certain facial expression.

 

WWF Championship: Sycho Sid (c) def Bret "Hitman" Hart in 17:04- During Sid's entrance Shawn calls him "the WWF's most expensive piece of luggage" because everyone has to carry him. Wow. He veers between straight match analysis and little shooty gems like that the whole match. I'm no expert, but his eyes certainly look like he was partaking in some recreational drugs before going out there too. Angry Bret jumps Sid from behind as he's taking the belt off. Bret takes a hard buckle shot and Sid clothesline. Running kick. Bret stays aggressive and borderline heel with punches and eye rakes. Sid dumps Bret outside and pulls the floor mat up. Bret runs Sid's back into the post. Back in the ring he goes to work on the back with laser focus for the next few minutes. Bret also continues to heel it up, taking the top turnbuckle pad off. He goes to run Sid into it but Sid blocks it. While he is Bret gives him more shots to the back and does some more back work. He tries going up top but Sid slams him off. Big boot. Powerslam for 2. Bret dodges a legdrop and tries to hook in the Sharpshooter. Sid fights it off, sending Bret to the floor again. Austin comes back out and clips Bret's knee! Bulldog and Owen come out again, not to save Bret because they're on opposite sides still, but to resume the fight with Austin. They all leave. Bret gets back in and walks the knee off. Sid lets him because he has no idea what happened. They badly mess up a spot where Bret was supposed to get run into the exposed buckle so they break all the normal rules and do the exact same spot over again. It's very obvious. Sid choke slam. Bret kicks out! Bret dodges and hits Sid with a Cactus clothesline! Bret takes Shawn's chair, which Shawn lets him do. Sid hits Bret from behind while he does. Sid pushes Shawn! That's enough for Shawn. He drops his headset and gets on the apron. Sid reverses a whip and Bret is run into Shawn! Powerbomb! That gets the win for Sid. Afterward Bret attacks Shawn on the floor. Well, that was certainly a busy match. Taken as a stand alone match it wasn't much, but there's a lot of interesting character and story things going on here to close out the year, none of which involve the current champion. **1/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- As became pretty typical for WWF, it's a wheel spinning December PPV biding time until the Royal Rumble with nothing special happening outside all the character angles being set up. As 1996 comes to a close the doldrums of mid-'90s WWF are firmly in the rear view mirror, and although it wouldn't show in the ratings or on the balance sheets until well into 1998, all the pieces were in place for a full on creative renaissance in 1997 that would kick off the Attitude Era in full force and be, in my opinion, one of the greatest years in the promotion's history.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-

Survivor Series '96

Legacy Review

Survivor Series '96

November 17, 1996 from Madison Square Garden

Commentary: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler (to start) and Jim Ross (thankfully already done with heel JR)

Survivor Series Match: Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon & The Godwinns (w/Hillbilly Jim) def WWF Tag Team Champions The Slammy Award Winning Owen Hart and "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith & The New Rockers (w/Clarence Mason) in 20:41- Furnas and LaFon are making their WWF debut here. JR mentions All Japan, almost unheard of on WWF TV, and that they were All Asia tag champs. In fact, outside the Steiners they were probably the most successful gaijin tag team in Japan in the '90s. Janetty and LaFon start. Janetty is playing around. LaFon is not. He lands on his feet after a monkey flip and kills Janetty with a clothesline. Cassidy comes in and Lafon outwrestles him. Phineas comes in and runs over Cassidy. Cassidy slams Phineas! Phineas blocks another attempt. The New Rockers double team and the heels gang up on Phineas to send him hog farmer in peril. After a few minutes Janetty misses an elbow off the second rope and Phineas tags Henry. Somewhere in there Janetty legit hurt his knee and they have to do some improvising before Henry takes Janetty out with the slop drop. Owen runs in with a spinning heel kick and Henry is also gone. Phineas tosses Owen over the top to the floor. Owen reaches out for a blind tag but Bulldog wasn't paying attention and they make a bit of a show out of it. Finally Bulldog gets in and powerslams Phineas to eliminate him. Furnas come in and he and Bulldog horribly mistime a spot where it looks like Furnas is going for a dropkick but Bulldog just runs right through him. Then stomps on Furnas as he's down, maybe out of real frustration. Furnas goes in peril. Cassidy Saito suplex for 2. Owen with a sweet ass sweet blind missile dropkick for 2. Furnas blocks a suplex and gets a small package for 2. Owen perfectplex for 2. Bulldog hits the delayed suplex. Furnas dodges Cassidy in the corner and gets a tag. LaFon lifts Cassidy up on the top rope and hits a reverse superplex! Cassidy is gone. That move woke the crowd up. Bulldog and Lafon do some counterwrestling, ending with a LaFon hook kick. Jackknife cover on Bulldog for 2. Owen gets a belly to belly suplex for 2. Neckbreaker and elbow off the second rope for 2. Enzuguri! LaFon kicks out! DONNYBROOK! LaFon gets a crucifix roll up on Bulldog to eliminate him! Bulldog clips his knee on the way out. Owen goes to work on it. Sharpshooter! Furnas comes in and Owen lets go to fight him off. LaFon hits a reverse enzuguri and tags. Furnas dropkick, his specialty, for 2. Huge belly to belly on Owen but he gets a foot on the rope. Furnas hits a release German suplex that Owen has to flip completely over on to keep from landing on his head, and that gets the pin and the win! Big debut for Furnas and LaFon. The match had some moments, but also some sloppiness. Owen and the Bulldog looked great, Furnas and LaFon had some Steiner-like tossing people around greatness at points but also struggled at times with the change of styles, and, to be honest, the Godwinns were so bad they drag the match down just by being in it. SURVIVORS: Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon **

 

The Undertaker def Mankind in 14:54- You'd think the Buried Alive match would have been the final blowoff. You thought wrong. Paul Bearer is being suspended above the ring in a cage in this one, and if Taker wins he can "get his hands on him". Bearer, not surprisingly, wants nothing to do with the cage. Taker comes down from the rafters for his entrance wearing what's clearly a Batman cape. Bruce Wayne should sue for gimmick infringement. When the lights come up we can see this is a very different Undertaker. No gloves, black leather gear, and he's got the teardrop tattoo. This is the look that in a couple of years would become synonymous with Ministry of Darkness Taker. Bearer is scared shitless and gets in the cage for protection. Mankind ambushes from behind and rams Taker's head in the cage. Brawl on the floor. Back in Taker whips Mankind hard from corner to corner. They go with a really good wide shot for this sequence and it really looks like the ring is moving. Taker's also whipping out some more wrestling, including a drop toe hold and fireman's carry takedown. He starts working Mankind's Mandible Claw hand. Clearly he watched the Shawn Michaels match. Taker misses an elbow drop. Cactus Clothesline! They go over the guardrail a bit into the crowd. Taker backdrops Mankind over the rail back onto the ringside mat! While they're standing on the apron Mankind hits a desperation low blow. Mankind cannonball senton off the apron! He hits the running knee in the corner back in. Taker pops out of the corner with a back elbow. Mankind with a piledriver! He goes for the claw but Taker blocks it. Big boot. He lifts Mankind up for snake eyes. Mankind hooks the claw in! Taker quickly flips him out to the floor to get out of it. Another hard rail shot for Mankind. Taker hits old school. Mankind gets a swinging neckbreaker. He comes off the top rope, but Taker grabs him with a goozle! Mankind counters by putting the claw on again! Taker goes down and they do the arm drops. Taker slowly recovers and pulls Mankind's hand out. Choke slam! Mankind dodges a charge and Taker goes over the top to the floor. He dodges another senton! Mankind hooks in a sleeper. Taker quickly back suplexes out. Sometime earlier Bearer had dropped the spike in the ring. Mankind now gets it and goes to work on Taker with it. He climbs on Taker's back. Taker flips him over and hits the tombstone! 3 count! Before he can get his hands on Bearer the Executioner runs out to save him. Taker fights him off, but Bearer is long gone. The matches between these two keep getting better and better. And even though it's still 1996, this was 100% an Attitude Era style match. ***1/2

 

Survivor Series Match: Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Stalker, "Wildman" Marc Mero and Rocky Maivia (w/Sable) def Jerry "The King" Lawler, Crush, Goldust and WWF Intercontinental Champion Hunter Hearst Helmsley (w/Marlena) in 23:44- Sunny joins commentary for this match, replacing Lawler. This is the point that they were starting to get at a loose end as to what to do with her as she tended to overshadow anyone she was trying to manage. Yes, this is the Rock's famous debut, silly tassles, curly hair and all. The Stalker is Barry Windham with a giant mustache in honor of his dad. Roberts is a surprise replacement for an injured Mark Henry, and to say he doesn't look in ring shape is an understatement. He looks horrible. After a lot of guys going in and changing their mind, including HHH running away from IC title rival Mero, we finally have first contact with Mero and Goldust. All Mero early. Windham ducks Goldust clotheslines and hits his own. He's definitely lost a step. Commentary drops the "Stalker" thing altogether and straight up calls him Barry Windham, even going over as much of his history as being on WWF TV will allow. Trips avoids Mero again. Rocky is in for the first time with Crush. He immediately gets caught in the heel corner. Lawler comes in and Rocky no sells his tackle, then dropkicks and punches him to the floor. Lawler wants no more. Vince mentions Rocky is the "former Dwayne Johnson". HHH and Rocky are in together for the first time. Who knew then how important both would become to this era's history? HHH pounds him down in the corner as Rocky goes in peril. Crush shows why he hasn't been on PPV in forever. Rocky comes back on HHH with punches and a backdrop. Tag to Roberts. Pudgy Roberts punches all the heels. Short clothesline. HHH counters the DDT by backing Roberts into the heel corner. Lawler gets in and does some more "Jake's been hitting the bottle" mocking. DDT outta nowhere! Lawler's gone. More Roberts in peril. He jawbreakers out of a Goldust chinlock and tags Windham. Suplex with floatover on Goldust for 2. Crush hits Windham from behind. Goldust plants him with the Curtain Call and Stalham (Windker?) is gone. Mero gets beat down a bit, giving HHH an opening to finally come in and work him over. Crush carries Mero around in a bearhug. Goldust flying clothesline for 2. This Mero in peril sequence is going on *forever*, because their only other options are out of shape Roberts or green as hell Rocky, never mind the fact Rocky's getting the big run at the end. Er, spoilers. HHH puts Mero in the abdominal stretch and gets blatant help from Goldust right in front of outside ref Harvey Whippleman. Mero sunset flips HHH, who fights it forever before finally tagging Goldust. That was classic HHH right there. Best thing in the whole match. Mero comes back again and still stays in. Flying headscissors on HHH, followed by the match's approximately 10th backdrop. The Mero moonsault pins HHH. Crush comes in, goes for a press slam but it looks like Mero straight up tells him he's not gonna do it and they fumble around for a bit. Crush gets dropkicked to the floor. Mero plancha! Goldust pushes Crush out of the way and Mero splats on the floor! While TV is doing picture in picture replays Crush hits Mero with his heart punch finisher and pins him with zero fanfare. Crush ducks a Roberts short clothesline, hits him with the heart punch and Roberts is gone. Young Rocky is all by himself against Crush and Goldust. The veterans try to walk him through the end run but it gets ugly at times. Crush inadvertently heart punches Goldust and Rocky hits him with a wild crossbody for the pin. The he hits a shoulderbreaker on Goldust (a shoutout to his father I believe) for the last pin and match win. He gets an OK crowd reaction, not a spectacular one. As we know, the big early babyface push would backfire and the crowd would turn on him until he saved his career with his first heel run. The match was way too long for what most of these guys had to offer, 20ish minutes that felt like an hour. SOLE SURVIVOR: Rocky Maivia *

Video recap of the long-simmering Austin/Bret feud. The package also shows the recent angle between Austin and Brian Pillman, which included Austin destroying Pillman's ankle with a chair (birthing the term "Pillmanized"). Not shown in the package was the (in)famous follow up segment on Raw when Austin broke into Pillman's house and found himself at the business end of Pillman's gun, the first of many highly controversial angles put on by the WWF in this period. Vince and JR handle the next match themselves as a two man booth, with Vince letting JR take the lead more often and generally sounding much more casual and even enjoying himself with JR. More signs of positive change.

 

WWF Championship #1 Contender's Match: Bret "Hitman" Hart def "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in 28:36- This is Bret's big return match, having not wrestled on TV since Wrestlemania 12. Austin gets a noticeable pop from MSG. Bret gets a massive one. The winner gets a title shot at the next In Your House. Intense staredown. Austin gives Bret the double middle finger. After some lockup gamesmanship Austin jaws and Bret shoves. The next few minutes they go through some feeling out arm work tradeoffs. An Austin back elbow ratchets things up. Bret continues to focus on the arm. Austin hits a stun gun! He follows that up with a lot of work to Bret's throat area. Bret fights back up and we have a slugfest. Austin wins and does a little mudhole stomping. Bret reverses a corner whip and hits a clothesline. Inverted atomic drop. Bret roll up for 2. Austin counters a bulldog and we have a Bret bump. Austin sets Bret up for a superplex. Bret counters and hits his usual second rope elbow drop from the top rope. Austin eye rakes out of a backbreaker and uses momentum to send Bret to the floor. He runs Bret's back into the post. Bret charges, and he and Austin crash through the guardrail into the first row! Double leg takedown by Austin on the floor, and he slingshots Bret onto the Spanish announce table! Cabrera and Savinovich are down! Austin dives in and pounds away on Bret where the announcers normally sit. He (gently) slams Bret on the table. Elbow drop off the apron! Austin suplexes Bret back in. More Bret beatdown to dueling chants. Austin, a legitimately very smart man and always astute to what's going on, gets the crowd against him again by hooking up an abdominal stretch with illegal rope leverage. Ref Tim White catches him and Austin gives him a little Ric Flair on Tommy Young attitude. Crazy slugfest in the middle of the ring. Bret and Austin, not Austin and the ref. This time Bret wins the exchange. Bret hits Austin with a stun gun! Rolling cradle for 2. Bret with a piledriver. Austin kicks out. Bret goes up top. Austin knocks him down, chops the hell out of him, and this time hits the superplex! But Bret rolls his legs up after the landing and wraps Austin up in a pinning combination! Austin just kicks out. Stunner! But Austin didn't quite get all of it, and takes a second to pull Bret away from the ropes which allows Bret to kick out at 2! Austin hooks in a cloverleaf. Bret gets to the ropes. On a corner whip Bret looses footing and slides back first into the post! Austin covers for 2. Bow and arrow! Bret fights out. Austin fights off a Sharpshooter attempt. Bret hooks on a sleeper. Austin jawbreakers out. Million Dollar Dream! Austin going deep in the playbook. Bret climbs up the corner, flips over, and traps Austin down for the pin! Yes, it's a repeat of the finish of the Bret/Piper match at WM 8 but who cares. What a match. Crisp, intense, dramatic, it's professional effing wrestling at its absolute finest. Even in losing Austin's star continues to rise as he hung with Bret Hart every step of the way. And they'd lay down an even better match at the next WM. ****3/4

 

Survivor Series Match: Vader, Faarooq, (Fake) Razor Ramon and (Fake) Diesel & Flash Funk, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka, Yokozuna and Savio Vega go to a no contest in 9:48- The Nation of Domination is here! Nation! Of Domination! This is the WWF debut for Flash Funk, formerly known as 2 Cold Scorpio in WCW and ECW. Fake Diesel you know as Mayor Glenn "Kane" Jacobs. Fake Ramon you probably don't know as Rick Bognar. He had a frankly unremarkable career both before and after this, though he was part of NWO Japan for a bit in New Japan as Rick Titan. Snuka was a surprise entrant after being inducted into the Hall of Fame the previous night. In its early years the HOF ceremony was the night before Survivor Series. I'd say Yokozuna is huge but I think I've exhausted all my fat Yokozuna jokes already. He's large, let's leave it at that. This would actually be his last match before WWF sent him out to extended fat camp before finally releasing him outright in '98. Jim Cornette joins commentary to annoy Vince and JR. Funk and Vader start. Vader lays in the corner beatdown and short clothesline. Funk hits a spinning heel kick that Vader starts selling while he's still half a foot away. A crossbody sends both over the top to the floor. Funk with a moonsault off the top to the floor! They get back in and he runs into a Vader tackle. Yokozuna's seen enough, comes in without a tag and gives Vader a uranage. Faarooq and Vega have a spunky back and forth. Vega is all over Fake Ramon before Ramon hits a horrible fallaway slam. Funk gets killed by a Fake Diesel clothesline. Faarooq spinebuster on Funk. Guys from both teams fight out of the other team's corners rinse and repeat. Snuka comes in and hits his stuff. He slams Vader! Vader pulls the top rope down on Vega to send him to the floor. Faarooq posts his back, and Diesel finishes hm with the fake jackknife. The real Superfly Splash takes out Fake Ramon. Diesel comes in with a chair and it's EVERYONE IN THE POOL TIME. The refs completely lose control and throw the whole match out. Crap ending, crap match. 1/2*

 

WWF Championship: Sycho Sid def "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels (c) (w/Jose Lothario) in 20:02- MSG loves Sid. Shawn gets very high pitched cheers and very low pitched boos so it's pretty obvious who's for who. Technically Sid is still a face, for now. Cautious lockup. Sid pounds away to the delight of the crowd. Shawn slides under Sid's legs and hits a crossbody for 2. They exchange slaps and some headlock/headscissors counters. Slugfest. Sid presses Shawn but he slips out. Shawn goes for a backdrop but Sid stops and cinches up for a powerbomb. Shawn scurries away. More speed as this continues to look like a normal Sid match in fast forward thanks to Shawn. Shawn clips Sid's knee and goes to work on it to more boos. "Let's go Sid" chant. Figure four! After a bit Sid reverses it and they both get in the ropes. Shawn continues the knee work to a 50/50 reaction at best. Sid pushes out of another figure four attempt and Shawn posts his shoulder. Slightly faster than normal Sid beatdown. Shawn dodges in the corner and dropkicks Sid's knee. Sid clotheslines Shawn 360 to the floor. Shawn gets whipped into the apron and Sid presses him down on the guardrail. Back in the ring we get a more normal speed Sid beatdown. As in slow. Shawn flip! He snaps Sid's throat over the top rope and tries coming off the top, but Sid catches him and gives him a backbreaker. Hard buckle whips. Shawn wants more. He slowly fights back and gets into another slugfest. Shawn tries coming off the second rope but Sid gets a boot up, and Shawn does a crazy slow motion roll where he's standing on his head a solid couple of seconds. If you've ever seen the Shawn "I'm a tree" meme online, this is where it comes from. Sid slaps on a cobra clutch. Shawn goes down and has a couple of near falls before fighting out. Sid goozle. Shawn eye pokes out and quickly tunes the band up. Sid blocks the kick. Choke slam! Sid being Sid he takes absolutely forever to follow up. When he finally goes for the powerbomb Shawn rolls up a small package for 2. Sid powerslam. Shawn flying forearm. He kips up, but Sid says "screw your comeback" and murders him with a clothesline for a long 2 count. Sid goes over and takes a camera. Lothario gets on the apron. Sid hits him with the camera! Superkick! Shawn sees his mentor down and goes out to help him. He and Sid get back in so they can do a dodged crossbody spot that takes Hebner out. I think they meant to do that before Shawn got out and got mixed up. Now Shawn goes out again while commentary talks about Lothario maybe having a heart attack. Sid hits Shawn with the camera! Powerbomb! Hebner does the super slow count, and Sid gets the pin and, after many delays, cancelled plans and real life incidents wins his first world title. MSG loves it. Shawn doesn't care and goes out to help/yell at the medics treating Lothario. Not surprisingly, Shawn carried Sid to probably his best match ever. The crowd reactions were a lot of fun too, with the male contingent at MSG wanting nothing to do with Shawn anytime he did anything on offense. ***3/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- The Survivor Series matches aren't worth anyone's time unless you really want to watch the Rock's debut, but the singles matches delivered in spades. Overall it's probably WWF's best PPV in '96 and yet another big step toward the Attitude Era.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B

Starrcade '93

Legacy Review

Starrcade '93: 10th Anniversary

December 27, 1993 from the Independence Arena in Charlotte, NC

Commentary: Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura

You can tell this is a really big show- Ventura is wearing a suit! They jump right on the hype train for the main event, showing Vader's early arrival at the arena (wearing his Ribera steakhouse jacket) and in-ring mid-afternoon warm up to show he's ready for business. Meanwhile, Flair's not only not at the arena, he hasn't even left home yet! We cut to Flair's house where Mean Gene is with him saying goodbye to his family like a solider that's leaving for a suicide mission. Reid, David and young Ashley (Charlotte) are all there. Current wife Beth says goodbye at the door, and Flair and Okerlund have a short walk and talk to the limo. All this does a really good job of making the match and this show seem like a big deal and sell the stakes of Flair possibly losing his career.

Pretty Wonderful (w/The Assassin) def 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell (w/Teddy Long) in 11:45- The short lived, badly conceived Paul Roma as a Horseman experiment is thankfully over and he's back in his very natural heel role. The heels charge right in during their entrance and it's on. The faces clear the ring. Reset with Roma and Bagwell. Crossbody and armdrag by Bagwell. Arm work on Roma. He escapes and tags, but Orndorff walks right into an armdrag. He recovers with a forearm and kicks Scorpio all the way to the ramp. Scorpio breaks out some flippydo. Flying headscissors. Bagwell splash for 2. Atomic drop on Roma, who gives a very Rude-like sell. More picking apart of Roma's arm. Bagwell slaps a sleeper on Orndorff. While the ref is tied up with Scorpio, Roma breaks it up with an ax handle off the top rope. Triple backbreaker, huge elbow drop and arrogant cover for 2 by Roma. Orndorff hits a back suplex. Scorpio breaks the pin up. Roma with a powerslam. Bagwell dodges a splash off the top and gets the tag to Scorpio. Scorpio dives in Orndorff's vicinity and Orndorff sells it. Scorpio goes up top. Roma tries to stop him but Bagwell intercepts. Scorpio ax handle off the top. Assassin gets on the apron and takes a shot. He loads his mask up, taps Scorpio with a headbutt, and Orndorff covers for the pin. Nothing special but they kept it moving. They also had a bit of a hard time getting everyone in the right place for that finishing sequence. **1/4

Back to Flair and Okerlund in the limo riding to the arena, where they discuss in more detail what it would mean to Flair if he lost tonight and had to hang it up for good. 15 years later he'd still have a hard time making that call.

 

The Shockmaster def Awesome Kong (w/King Kong) in 1:34- Lord, what did we do to deserve this? The Kongs jump Shockmaster as soon as he hits the ring. Double clothesline. Double team avalanche. The ref lets it all go and the opening bell never rings. One Kong gets out, but the Kong left in the ring is the one with "King" on his tights, clearly the wrong one. Commentary even notices then covers by hilariously claiming that maybe they put the wrong tights on in the locker room. Shockmaster gets a boot up in the corner and hits a clothesline. Crossbody! He actually got off his feet! A single body slam gets the pin. Thankfully they kept it short. This was Shockmaster's last major appearance. DUD

Flair's limo arrives at the arena.

WCW World Television Championship: Lord Steven Regal (c) (w/Sir William) and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat go to a 15:00 time limit draw- Usual Regal stalling at the start. He fights off Steamboat's attempts at a leg takedown in the corner. Long lockup. Regal gets a shot on Steamboat's arm and Steamer spends a long while shaking it off. Half the audience already knows this is going to time limit. Regal gets a leg takedown and starts working the arm. Steamboat counters and flips Regal over by the arm. Steamboat leg takedown and jackknife cover for 2. Speed run and criss cross. Steamboat counters Regal's sunset flip counter for 2. Regal grabs an ankle and starts cranking it. Steamboat gets to his feet and hits an enzuguri. Chop off the top for 2. ARMBAR! 5 minutes left. Steamboat continues to work the arm oblivious to the time. 4 minutes left. Steamboat works a hammerlock into a cradle for 2. He adds in a headscissors. Regal works out and hits a huge European uppercut. 3 minutes left. Steamboat finally notices the time and lays in the chops. Both guys roll out and fight on the floor. Steamboat catches William coming in with the brolly and chases him around, running into a Regal dropkick. 2 minutes left. After some back and forth in the ring Steamboat hits a Japanese armdrag and DEEP armdrag. Regal counters with a headscissors. Steamboat works out and they barely get the bridge up spot pulled off. More counters. Steamboat hits a double underhook suplex for 2. One minute. Regal rolls out again. Steamboat follows with chops. He gives the heels a double noggin knocker and rolls Regal back in. He sets up for the crossbody off the top, but Regal dodges it with about 10 seconds left! Steamboat manages a desperation German suplex but the bell rings for the time limit mid-move. Solid draw. Give them more time and a real finish and it likely would have turned out pretty good. **3/4

Ventura argues that retirement really ain't that bad, and maybe by losing Flair will really be winning. We're getting into Game of Rassilon logic here.

Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne def Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce in 7:48- Payne turned face between Battlebowl and here. Jack gets a nice pop. Pierce and Payne start. Full speed shoulderblock collision that staggers both guys but no one goes down. Pierce knocks Payne down with a tackle. Payne counters with a shoulderblock and slam. Both sides swap. Slazenger and Jack do some back and forth brawling. Pierce breaks a pin up and we're everyone in early on. After things calm down Slazenger face plants Payne. Payne gets a sunset flip (!) on Pierce for 2. The heels double team and everyone's in again. Cactus Clothesline on Pierce! Jack flips Slazenger to the floor! Payne backdrops his partner over the top onto Slazenger! There's the closet thing to a big Foley bump for this match. Payne hooks Pierce in the Paynekiller. Slazenger recovers enough to break it up. Payne double clotheslines both heels. Jack avoids a double team. Kick wham double underhook DDT and good night. *1/2

Mean Gene does what he was paid to do in WCW, shill the hotline. They're running a poll to see if all title matches should be two out of three falls. After that NASCAR driver Kyle Petty (the noise you hear is my friend Cody booing him) joins Okerlund to talk about his dad Richard's retirement in context of what Flair faces tonight. Yeah, the difference is Flair could still go, while Richard Petty, who was great in his day, had been riding around getting lapped for a good 5 or 6 years before he finally hung it up.

 

Two out of Three Falls Match for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: "Stunning" Steve Austin (w/Col. Robert Parker) def "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes (c) in 16:16- FIRST FALL: Good counterwrestling start. They do a speed run and Austin runs into a bionic elbow, then powders. When he gets back in Dustin outwrestles him again. They crank it up again. Dustin counters a powerbomb attempt into a backslide for 2. Austin rolls out again. Slugfest on the floor. Austin gets whipped and goes OVER the guardrail about four rows deep! Damn, that was a hard splat on the concrete. Of course he's right back up, calling for a time out. When they get back in Austin offers a handshake. Dustin pops him in the mouth. Well that's just rude. Austin gets a cheap shot in the corner. Back elbow for 2. He tosses Dustin to the floor. Dustin sunset flips back in for 2. Sloppy Dustin dropkick. Slugfest. Austin hits a back suplex. A shoulderblock puts both guys down. Dustin catches a leaping Austin. Austin grabs the top rope to fall on Dustin for 2. Dustin dodges a knee off the second rope and goes into full comeback mode. Bionic elbow. Diving clothesline. Powerslam for 2. Parker gets on the apron. Dustin throws Austin into him! But Austin went over the top rope, and the ref call for the bell and a DQ. Dustin hops out and posts Austin while the ref tries to get him to stop for the between falls rest period. Parker is carried out.

SECOND FALL: Austin is busted open and bleeding good. Dustin tosses him back in and gives him an ax handle off the top rope for 2 as the ring lights go out. GIVE ME MY SPOTLIGHT! Best Batista gimmick ever. Dustin hits a suplex. The lights come back on. He goes up for mounted punches on Austin with a huge spot of Austin's blood on his thigh. Austin counters with a double leg takedown, grabs a handful of tights, and gets the pin and the title! Well. If they were going to do that finish and have Austin win two straight falls, why do the 2/3 fall match at all? Apart from that and the short second fall and abrupt ending, it tried really, really hard to be good but was never quite able to get there. **1/2

 

WCW International World Heavyweight Championship: "Ravishing" Rick Rude (c) def The Boss in 9:08- This was supposed to be the British Bulldog losing yet another title match in WCW, but he was released after Battlebowl due to some real life legal troubles. He'd return to WWF in mid-'94. For his replacement, WCW got another guy they had just signed from the WWF, the artist formerly known as the Big Boss Man. Right now the only difference is Boss is in a black shirt instead of a blue one. There'd be many name and gimmick changes for him over the next couple of years, but more on that in future reviews. In a way this matchup is a bit ironic, as Rude had left the WWF just when Boss Man started going through the Heenan Family to get revenge for Heenan insulting his momma. Jawing start. Boss is all kinds of fired up. Very rough lockup with Boss almost looking like he's trying to shoot wrestle Rude. Rude hides in the corner. Boss spits on him! Another rough lockup and more stalling. Finally Rude gets a cheap shot in the corner and starts working Boss over. Boss comes back with a mile high backdrop and big boot. Pillar to post beating as Tony talks about WCW getting a new commissioner at the start of the new year, name to be determined. They go outside and Rude gets slammed on the floor. Boss lifts Rude up in a suplex on the floor, which hooks Rude's legs upside down on the top rope. Boss gives him a few shots before Rude gets untangled. Boss bear hug. Rude bites out. Boss catches Rude coming off the top rope. Faceplant. Rude dodges and Boss gets crotched in the ropes. Sunset flip from Rude, and that gets a clean pin. I don't know if it was him being unhappy about getting a title with no real existence, problems with Bischoff or what, but Rude has absolutely been dogging it during this title run, in contrast to his tremendous pre-injury US title run. *

Promo for Superbrawl IV in February, which is advertised as "double Thundercage".

 

WCW World Tag Team Championship: Sting and Road Warrior Hawk def The Nasty Boys (c) (w/Missy Hyatt) by DQ in 29:11- To the shock of no one the Nastys stall the hell out of the start. After Sting and Knobbs finally get going it only takes a few moves for Knobbs to roll out. Hawk presses Sting down to the floor on both Nastys! Both sides swap and Hawk no sells Saggs forearms. After a short heel corner beatdown Hawk pops out with a double clothesline. The Nastys powder again, and when Saggs gets back in Hawk pounds him down. Enzuguri for 2. Knobbs' arm gets worked on. Hawk does his usual shoulder posting and fall to the floor spot. Saggs dives on him and hits him with a chair. Hyatt gets a stiff slap in. The Nastys spend the next few minutes picking Hawk's arm apart. They work the phantom tag spot in. Almost immediately Sting gets the real tag and cleans house. The Nastys go to the ramp again and decide to take a walk. The faces chase them down and drag them back to the ring. Knobbs gets his knees up on a Sting splash off the top rope. Legdrop off the second rope that Sting half rolled away from and he gets nailed right in the head. Ref Nick Patrick quickly checks on him. Ugly. Sting gets thrown out, takes a rail shot and a whipping from Hyatt. Some guys are into it. Back in the Nastys break out Nasty Rest Hold 1A: The Abdominal Stretch of Horrid Time Stretichiness. Capetta gives us the 20 minutes call, only 10 minutes to time limit. It's a 30 minute limit instead of 60. Saggs hits a pumphandle slam. Knobbs busts out Nasty Rest Hold 1B: The Double Chinlock of Killing Time Until We Can Go Home. And then the abdominal stretch comes out again. 5 minutes left. Sting is still in peril. Ugly Knobbs splash off the second rope. 4 minutes left. Knobbs says "one more time", goes for another splash and this time Sting gets his boot up. Hawk gets knocked off the apron and can't tag. Hawk says screw it and nails Knobbs from behind. 3 minutes left. Tag to Hawk. Hawk rampage. Ugly ass powerslam. DONNYBROOK! Stinger Splash on Knobbs! He goes for the Scorpion but Hyatt distracts from the apron. Sting gives her a mouth full of whip, lets Knobbs run into her, and rolls Knobbs up. Patrick counts despite the fact neither guy is legal and Knobbs kicks out. Doomsday Device! Hyatt runs in for the cheap, blatant DQ. Almost 30 minutes of a Nasty Boys match for that weak ass finish. If they'd kept it to 15ish and did that during the Sting hot tag run it, well, would have still sucked but not quite as bad. The whole second half of the match felt pointlessly tacked on. 3/4*

Before getting to the main event, here's some Starrcade 10th anniversary stats because at heart I'm a stats guy: This is the 11th Starrcade, and the 9th to be main evented by Flair. The only two he didn't were '91 and '92 when he was in the WWF. Even in the '89 Iron Man tournament Flair and Sting were the last match, and '90 counts because Flair wrestled the main event as the Black Scorpion and was unmasked. Debates on how stupid it was to have Flair be the Scorpion, while valid, are beside the point here.

 

Title vs Career Match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair def Big Van Vader (c) (w/Harley Race) in 21:18- Flair's got all the pyro, including a huge pyro waterfall. He gets a massive hometown pop. Real big fight feel here, the kind WCW hasn't had for a long time. Vader shoves Flair across the ring out of lockups. After three of those Flair rolls out for a think. Vader starts to chase, realizes what he's doing and stops. Smart. Back in Vader lays in some potatoes, grabs a knucklelock and cranks Flair's wrist. Short clothesline. "You ain't man enough!". Flair turns Vader around and hits some chops in the corner. From the camera angle you can clearly see Flair tell Vader "shove me". Vader does. Corner pound down and press slam from Vader. Flair goes to the floor again and Vader follows. He presses Flair and drops him on the guardrail. Flair dodges and Vader crashes into the rail! Chops! Race pops Flair and Vader suplexes him back in. More corner potatoes. Flair Flip! He falls on the ramp and staggers down into the rail. Huge Vader clothesline back in. Flair tries to chop back but it's having no effect. Vader powerslam for 2. Clothesline off the second rope. Flair took a stiff shot somewhere and is bleeding a little from his mouth, but he's got a ton of fight left in him. He dodges a Vader splash off the second rope! Flair ax handle off the top rope. A second one that pretty much missed. A third one puts Vader down. Kneedrop. Vader's up with a clothesline. He places Flair up on the top rope. Superplex! Vader drops an elbow to the gut and Flair sells it to the rafters. He dodges another Vader splash, but runs into a tackle. Flair gets tossed outside again. Race stomps on him. More chops on Vader that are shrugged off. Flair dodges an avalanche! After some corner whip reversals Vader hits the avalanche. Race screams at Flair to quit. Flair goes to the desperation eye poke and slowly punches Vader down. The mask is off. Flair drags Vader to the corner and posts his knee! While Race has the ref tied up Flair gives the knee a chairshot! Brawl on the floor with Flair getting the upper hand for the first real time. Charishot to Vader's head! More punches in the ring. Flair bites Vader! He picks the knee apart some more. Vader fights off the figure four. Flair dodges a Vader bomb! Figure four! Race gets on the apron as the crowd goes nuts. Vader gets to the ropes. Flair is all fired up, but runs straight into a big boot. Another elbow to the gut. Vader climbs up top. VADERSAULT! FLAIR DODGES! He covers, but catches Race climbing to the top and gets out of the way just in time. Race headbutts Vader! Flair running forearm and chops. He runs into another tackle, but pops back up, clips Vader's knee, works him over, and stacks him up for a pin and the title! MASSIVE roof busting pop from Flair's hometown crowd! Officially they call it Flair's 11th world title. Vader's dominant reign ends at 3 days short of a full year (he did swap the belt back and forth with Sting during a UK tour in March, but I'm not sure those are officially recognized). The match was absolute magic, with the greatest of all time and the greatest big man of all time doing their stuff and telling a phenomenal story of Flair taking down the unbeatable monster. ****3/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- WCW ends a very rough 1993 with both their match of the year and moment of the year. As great as Vader was as champion, one of the year's few bright spots (the Hollywood Blondes and Cactus Jack are others that come to mind), getting Flair back on top gave the company a shot in the arm that they'd ride the first half of '94 leading to the debut of a rather large free agent signing midyear. And to think this was going to be Sid's spot until he got fired. The rest of the show is take it or leave it.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C

In Your House 11: Buried Alive

Legacy Review

In Your House 11: Buried Alive

October 20, 1996 from the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, IN

Commentary: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross (as heel JR unfortunately)

Heel JR's mic starts messing up immediately during the stand up intro. This would go on through all of the first two matches and it gets old real quick. This is the first IYH not to have the house stage. Instead it's a giant graveyard gate, to my memory the first instance of a one-off PPV themed stage by WWF, an idea long overdue to come back.

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin def Hunter Hearst Helmsley in 15:30- The first of many meetings. It's also a match between the King of the Ring winner and the man that was supposed to win it before someone had to be punished for the Curtain Call. This was supposed to be Austin against old rival Savio Vega to put a bow on that feud before Austin moved on to Bret Hart but Vega was injured. Instead, we get this heel vs heel clash. That's only going to make the crowd's warming up to Stone Cold that much more obvious. Glass shatter! Austin's classic entrance music is here! One step closer. It's so weird hearing that shatter sound without the ginormous Austin pop. Unusual slow start from Austin. HHH hits an armdrag and gives Austin the arrogant bow. Austin, then HHH, step out to jaw with the same couple of fans at ringside. Austin hits an armdrag and tells Trips he's #1 with both hands. After a solid basics exchange HHH hits a back elbow to escalate things. More stalling as all the focus on TV is JR's mic not working right. Shoving and slapping, with Austin flooring HHH with a slap. They go speed and Austin hits an elbow and kneedrop. HHH eye pokes out of some arm work and hits some chops. Austin with a boot up in the corner and clothesline for 2. Slugfest tradeoff in the corner. HHH with a backdrop and kneedrop for 2. Back suplex. They have a fun sequence where they rapid fire trade hooking in sleepers on each other, ending with an Austin jawbreaker. HHH flop! Austin covers for 2. HHH gets hot shotted, with JR calling it the stun gun. Austin elbow off the second rope for 2. HHH hits the high knee. Fistdrop off the second rope for 2. Double clothesline! Mr. Perfect comes out to ringside. He was scheduled to make his in-ring return against Trips the next night on Raw (which didn't happen as Vince didn't want him to wrestle because of his chronic back injuries, and in fact would lead to Perfect turning back heel to become HHH's mentor just in time for him to jump to WCW because they would let him wrestle). Perfect makes a move on HHH's arm candy. HHH comes out to object and Austin hits him from behind. Austin starts jawing with Perfect and they get into it. Perfect throws a drink in Austin's face! Now HHH gets the ambush. Perfect leaves with HHH's woman. HHH hooks in the Pedigree, then sees Perfect leaving with his bird and chases him down. Austin follows. Suplex hook in, reversal, and HHH suplexes Austin on the aisle! Austin backdrops out of a Pedigree on the floor and slingshots HHH into the post. Back in, double middle finger and Stunner! That gets the pin. They had a lot, A LOT, to fight against and they still managed to pull of a damn watchable almost good match. There's clearly something here. **3/4

Recap of the whole Sunny/Smoking Gunns saga. Bart's not happy about being the third wheel and wants things back to normal while Billy wants to have some Sunny days again.

WWF Tag Team Championship: The Slammy Award Winning Owen Hart and "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith (c) (w/Clarence Mason) def The Smoking Gunns in 9:17- This is a rematch of Owen and Bulldog's title win at the last IYH, with the difference being the Gunns are now sans Sunny. It's also another heel vs heel match. Well, Bart was playing nice but who wants to cheer for Bart Gunn? No one, that's who. Billy and Owen start. Billy wins the early exchange and does a nice Owen-like brag about it. Owen gets a flip escape and Billy kills him with a clothesline. Owen catches him coming off the top rope and the champs hit some double teams. Bart clotheslines Bulldog from the apron. We get a shot of Sunny watching backstage and looking downright yummy in that little red dress. Yes, yes, I know, she's the biggest train wreck imaginable now, but back then every man in the world wanted her. Bart hits a powerslam but misses a crossbody off the top. Bulldog crossbody for 2. More champion double teaming as Bart is in peril. Bart hits the ropes and knocks a showboating Billy to the floor. They argue and Owen rolls Bart up for 2. Billy grabs Owen and Bart hits him from behind, now sending Owen in peril. They set up the sidewinder. Bulldog sneaks in and hides behind Bart, times it, and pulls Bart away at the last second. Owen nails Billy with a spinning heel kick and gets the pin. The Gunns leave separately as the slow burn to their breakup continues. The work was fine, but it didn't have that extra juice to get it to the next level. Crowd didn't care much either. *3/4

It's in-ring promo time with heel JR. He runs Vince down and promises that he himself personally will have Bret Hart live on Raw tomorrow night, and that Bret's bringing a shovel to bury some people. He then makes some comments about "the guy that owns this company", which at that time only clued in fans or people that remembered the steroid trial knew was Vince so it's doing a little fourth wall breaking, and storms off. After that is clips from the Free For All of still injured Ahmed Johnson attacking Faarooq and his silly hat backstage, which will prevent Faarooq from getting his scheduled IC title rematch tonight. Former champ Goldust is taking his place. Once again it's a testament to how awesome Ron Simmons was that he was able to overcome the absolutely horrendous classic WWF mid-'90s crap gear he was originally given. Perfect comes out again to take JR's #3 seat at the commentary table while Mero stumbles through an awful prematch promo.

WWF Intercontinental Championship: "Wildman" Marc Mero (c) (w/Sable) def Goldust (w/Marlena) in 11:38- Mero defeated Faarooq in the finals of the tournament to fill the vacant title following Ahmed Johnson's injury. He's got the white strap belt tonight. Cautious start. Goldust gets in a little fondling in the corner. Mero hits a dragon screw leg whip (just wrong to use that as an early match transitional move) and armdrags. Goldust with an eye gouge and chops in the corner. He spits in Mero's face and that sets Mero off. He lays in a little ground and pound. Sloppy flying headscissors. Goldust powders. Mero with a somersault plancha! Slingshot legdrop back in for 2. Mero goes to the second rope and Goldust slams him off with a .7 choke slam. Clothesline for 2. A knee to the gut cuts off a Mero comeback. Mero gets a big head of steam and hits a crossbody for 2. Another Goldust clothesline. He wants a mic. He threatens to stick his tongue down the throat of everyone in the crowd and hands the mic back. OK then. Kinda pointless. Mero hits a back suplex. Moonsault! Goldust kicks out. A corner whip reversal leads to a Mero Bret bump. Goldust gets up the Final Curtain DDT. Mero flips out and traps Goldust in a Gedo clutch for 2. Goldust dumps Mero to the floor. Perfect leaves commentary because he thinks the ref's done a crap job. HHH then comes out. Goldust tries to annoy Perfect so Perfect pops him, then chases HHH off. Back in Mero uses the distractions to hit a Samoan drop, then Wild Thing (a shooting star press) for the win. Mero's reign would be short lived, as he'd drop the title to HHH on Raw the next night with interference help from Perfect, HHH's first ever title. In fact, every IC title change from here until Summerslam '97 would happen on Raw. Mero knew how to get his high spots in. **1/4

WWF Championship #1 Contender's Match: Sycho Sid def Vader (w/Jim Cornette) in 8:00- This is billed as the masters of the powerbomb going against each other. Sid's still a face here. WWF Champ Shawn Michaels comes out to join commentary. Incidentally this is the first time ever the reigning WWF Champion hasn't wrestled on a PPV. He gets in the ring, wishes Sid luck, then stares off with Vader. Shawn grabs Cornette's hanky, blows his nose, and ducks a Vader clothesline. Vader hits Sid with it, who no sells it as the bell rings. Sid clothesline and legdrop for 2. Mounted punches. Vader blocks an attempted slam and pummels Sid across the ring with potato shots. Short clothesline. Avalanche. Sid goes to the floor and takes a racket shot from Cornette. He punches Vader back on the apron and Sid does a sunset flip (!) back in. Vader squashes him. More short clotheslines. Sid hits a back suplex and big boot in the corner (that they needed two attempts on to get it arranged right). Now Sid comes off the top rope (!) and Vader catches him! Slam and Vader splash for 2. Splash off the second rope. He pulls Sid up at 2! He sets up for the Vader bomb but takes his time about it and Sid gets his knees up. He slams Vader! Sid sets up the powerbomb. Cornette tries to come in and Sid cuts him off with a rope in the crotch. Kick wham Vader blocks the powerbomb and gives Sid a low blow. Now Vader tries the powerbomb. Sid blocks it, ducks a clothesline and hits a choke slam for 3! Shawn comes in. He and Sid stare down but end up shaking hands. Talk about Rusev Day miracles. Vader drug Sid to a watchable match. **1/2

Backstage, JR grabs the mic from Dok Hendrix to get some words with Sid, and what magical, majestic words from Sid they are. "I'm going to go to my destiny and make my conquer!" Pure poetry. A good recap of the lengthy Mankind/Undertaker feud follows.

 

Buried Alive Match: The Undertaker def Mankind (w/Paul Bearer) in 18:25- The rules are the match starts in the ring, but the only way to win is to put your opponent in the grave set up by the stage and bury him in dirt. It's also called the first unsanctioned match in WWF history but that isn't taken advantage of as much as it should have. After the constant revolving door all night at the announce desk Vince and Lawler handle this one by themselves. Immediate slugfest at the bell. Back and forth pummeling. Mankind takes a hard guardrail shot. Taker dives off the top rope to the floor! They work up the aisle to the grave. Taker grabs a shovel, but lets go for a second and Mankind jabs the handle in his face. Taker rolls up a small package and they tumble down the hill, then head back toward the ring. Mankind gets choked with a TV cable. Taker tosses him over the rail and they go a bit into the crowd but not too far. Taker whips Mankind over the rail back to ringside, then follows up with a flying clothesline over the rail! Back in the ring Taker hooks up for old school (I think I can call it that at this point). Bearer shakes the rope and Taker gets crotched. Mankind goes on offense. Bearer hands him a spike or spike-like object and he goes to town on Taker with it. Taker pops out of the corner with a back elbow and Mankind drops the spike. Taker picks it up and uses it on Mankind. Bearer tries to pull the ropes down again and Taker goes out to stalk him. Mankind gets a chair. Taker cuts him off. Bearer hits Taker with the urn and Mankind gives him a chairshot to the head. He caresses and even licks the chair after. Like I say, it's attention to the little things that makes truly great wrestlers. Mankind hits the running knee against the stairs. They work over to the gravesite again. Taker gets thrown in the grave and Mankind grabs a shovel. Taker goozle! Mankind throws dirt in his face. He tries to hiptoss Taker back in the grave but Taker blocks it and hiptosses Mankind to the bottom of the hill! That's the big Foley bump of the match. Back to the ring. Mankind hits a piledriver and covers but there's no pins in this match. Taker comes back up with rapid fire punches. Mankind gives him the double underhook DDT onto the chair! He has a moment with the urn. Taker situp! Chairshot for Mankind. He puts the chair on Mankind's head and legdrops it! Mankind pulls the mat up off the floor. Taker blocks a piledriver and drops Mankind into the stairs! He throws the stairs in the ring and gives Mankind a couple more shots with them. Tombstone! Taker points to the grave and carries Mankind over to it. When they get to the hill Mankind hooks in the Mandible Claw! He lets go to hit Taker with the urn. Another Taker goozle counter, and he choke slams Mankind into the grave! Taker grabs a shovel, pours on dirt, and after a minute the ref's seen enough and calls it for Taker! Pretty fun gimmick match brawl, way better than the Boiler Room Brawl. It could have used some blood but Vince and co. weren't comfortable with that just yet. ***

Taker continues to bury Mankind while throwing off the refs that try to stop him. One of them, I think Jack Doan, takes a crazy bump all the way down the hill. A masked man comes out (later to be named The Executioner, who is Terry Gordy in a mask), hits Taker with a shovel and unburies Mankind. Taker gets tossed in the grave. Mandatory thunder and lightning as the dirt is piled on. Other heels come out to join in. Crush gets PPV time for the first time in forever. The Man with Three H's brings his best burying shovel. They spend a good 5 minutes or so really piling the dirt on as the nearby fans seem to be having a contest as to who can throw a drink straight into the grave. Someone wins. 1996 me is also booing the ever loving hell out of the guy in the crowd with a Jeff Gordon shirt on. Yes, I was a 100% Dale Earnhardt guy. After the grave fills up there's some more thunder and the random heels scatter. Bearer and Mankind keep shoveling, then back off to admire their work. A lightning bolt strikes the grave with pyro! Taker's hand pops up out of the grave! End scene. Well, clearly Taker's now a vampire. Get Buffy in here.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Wrestling wise pretty much everything is middle of the road. Nothing great, nothing awful. The Buried Alive match is one worth going out of your way to check out if you're going through Undertaker or Mick Foley's career highlights. The whole show also continues to have a little more Attitude slowly being injected into the product. 

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C