Lex Luger vs The Blackmailer (WCW Clash of the Champions 5)

Solid early Lex match. He's a few years away from being as confident and polished as he would later be, but here, in his lime green trunks, he's every bit the charismatic young babyface that you'd want to push. His opponent here is Jack Victory, in generic tights, mask and totally unthreatening name, here just to give Lex a win on a big show. Lex's early control isn't especially exciting. It's headlocky, very headlocky, to the point that even Jim Ross highlights how much he's working the headlock. But crucially, he intersperses moments of excitement to pop the crowd. Big running shoulderblocks, or popping straight back up when Blackmailer counters a headlock with a back suplex. Lex let's Blackmailer take over by taking an insane over-the-top bump on a missed charge, and he's a good seller, working up from underneath when Blackmailer works his own headlocks. Loved Lex using a sunset flip as a counter, and he worked his comeback nicely. He didn't just start no-selling Blackmailer's punches, it was almost like "Oh, that punch didn't really hurt. Nor did that one! Hey, I think I might be ok here", building up his resistance in a way that popped the crowd. He finished with a superplex, because he had a big match with Barry Windham coming up, and though it wasn't Windham standard, it was still a decent effort. 

THIS IS NOT A COMEBACK, BUT...

World Class Championship Wrestling 22/01/1983

Kevin von Erich vs King Kong Bundy

This is for Kevin’s North American title. Kevin is all fight, in the face of Bundy early doors, to the extent that he actually gets Bundy over on a side headlock. Even more unlikely, they work some mat reversals, including Bundy countering to a headscissors. Didn’t expect that. Lovely spot where Bundy won’t let Kevin back into the ring, so Kevin does laps of the ring, using his speed to sneak an opening. Von Erich get the claw, but Bundy is in the ropes. Bundy moves the referee in the way as Kevin comes off the top, taking him out, and throws von Erich over the top rope, but it seems that the ref spots it, as he pulls Kevin out of the way of an avalanche attempt to declare him the winner. Really neat match.

Brian Adias vs Terry Gordy

Adias is accompanied by Kerry von Erich, so Gordy has his focus on Kerry most of the match. It affects his concentration, as Adias breaks a headlock to get an overhead wristlock instead. Sadly, a lot of this match is Gordy holding a headlock, which isn’t very interesting. Michael Hayes comes out to lure Kerry away, and the distraction lets Gordy hit a piledriver to win.

King Kong Bundy vs The Samoan

Pretty pedestrian squash for Bundy. He just wears the Samoan down methodically, though his big kneedrop to the back looks great. An avalanche is followed by a backbreaker and a splash for the win.

ECW Hardcore TV #40 18/01/1994

Tommy Dreamer & Badd Company vs The Tasmaniac, Kevin Sullivan & Johnny Hotbody

Pretty decent six-man, albeit with an ending that makes everyone look like an idiot. Thought this match had a really good Paul Diamond performance, he looks terrific and has some real dynamism to his moves. His running leg lariat in the corner was really nice in the opening minutes, and I liked the touches like fighting desperately to escape when Hotbody had him pinned in the opposing corner. The heels work him over nicely, good tag continuity. Tanaka gets the hot tag, but his flurry of offence is short lived, as he gets stopped in his tracks by Taz. Hotbody nails him with a sloppy superplex, and from this point on Tanaka is basically just beaten down. The heel team even take it in turns to pick him up on two counts, and Sullivan just repeatedly rams his head into the mat. However, Sullivan and Taz both roll to the floor and basically have a fit outside the ring. Hotbody goes for the tag, finds no-one there and gets rolled up by Tanaka for three. So the heels look dumb for throwing the win away, Tanaka looks bad for basically being dead for the final few minutes of the match, just a baffling ending.

911 vs Chad Austin

Austin wants a match, so Heyman gives him 911. Chokeslam, pin. There’s going to be a lot of these coming up, I guess?

Terry Funk vs Shane Douglas

I have to accept I was pretty naïve with this match. The show is a “special” 90 minute long episode, and the match starts half an hour into the show, yet at no point did alarm bells ring. I just assumed we’d get some more matches after this obvious main event. It’s only when we were 10-15 minutes into the match, and all we’d seen is Funk work a headlock (admittedly in an amusing manner) and Douglas apply various holds to Funk’s left arm (in a less interesting fashion) that I realised this thing was going long. And it felt loooooooong. Douglas especially doesn’t have enough stuff to fill this time effectively, and Joey Styles’s commentary highlighting that “Douglas is saving energy, just sitting back and working the arm” didn’t make the abundance of arm work interesting. I’m a guy who loves guys working a hold, but that’s different from lying down and holding the arm for a few minutes, then trying another hold. We also get two different crowd brawling spots, with the second one towards the end especially feeling like filler. Funk does a fun job of selling here, even seemingly blading the arm during the first crowd brawl. As a left-hander, he keeps trying to use his injured limb, the selljob of which keeps giving Douglas openings. However, we also get Funk crawling out of the ring after two piledrivers, Funk briefly working Douglas’s legs for the spinning toehold which he never tries for, a false finish with the ref restarting because Douglas used the ropes for leverage on a pin and then a schmozz of an ending with the Bad Breed and Sherri Martell all involved. By the time we got to the inevitable time limit draw, I just wanted this over.

WWF Raw 3/10/1994

British Bulldog vs Jim Neidhart

This was perfectly ok, while at the same time maybe not being as good as you’d hope for with two family members, one of whom is in his comeback match. Liked the opening battle of the shoulderblocks, with Bulldog winning with a leaping version, and DBS showed nice agility in hitting a standing dropkick out of a test-of-strength. Neidhart goes to “a semblance of a chinlock”, as described by Vince. Bulldog hurts his leg crashing to the floor after Owen Hart pulls down the ropes, which lures out Bret from the back, and Neidhart does a bit of token work on it. Loved Neidhart’s rope-assisted choke, standing on Bulldog’s throat and really working the rope to add emphasis. Neidhart misses a splash and Bulldog hits the delayed suplex, albeit with a minimal delay due to the leg. Owen interferes after Bulldog was going for a sunset flip, and this draws the DQ. Feels like an odd time for Owen to come in, especially after quite a lengthy match.

Doink vs Barry Horowitz

Horowitz looks really good in this match, substantially better than Doink. Doink barely gets enough elevation on a leapfrog and almost loses Horowitz on a backslide, while Barry gets a nice bridging pin and fully commits to a missed corner charge. Doink gets a powerslam and the Whoopie Cushion to win.

Bull Nakano & Luna Vachon vs Alundra Blayze & Heidi Lee Morgan

Odd match this, with Morgan taking 90% of the match, and totally dominating Nakano every time Bull is in. Morgan gets a fun, through-the-legs bridging pin on Vachon, before Luna takes over. However, as soon as Bull gets in, Morgan starts no selling shoulderblocks and getting a victory roll before Luna comes in to take control again. Really odd way to book the monster heel. You can almost hear Vince’s frustration as he complains about Morgan needing to get the champ in there. He also criticises Heidi’s decision to try a missed splash rather than make the tag, before Alundra gets in. Nakano blocks a double suplex and takes both Morgan and Blayze over instead. However, Luna accidentally hits a missile dropkick on her, and Blayze hits the German on Luna to win. Baffling booking of Nakano.

Bob Backlund vs Gary Scott

Fun little squash, with Bob letting Scott look quite competitive on the mat and working a nice sequence with him, before locking in the chicken wing for the win after a missed clothesline. Good way to end the show.

ECW Hardcore TV #38 28/12/1993

The Pitbull vs Chad Austin

Pitbull is a solo Gary Wolfe. Pretty much a mugging for poor Chad Austin, who gets folded in half with a back suplex early. Wolfe is someone I don’t really enjoy, but he looked good in a squash environment, hitting nice fistdrops and planting Austin with a big powerbomb. Austin helps him out by taking a 360 bump on an average looking clothesline. Pitbull gets cocky, constantly picking up Austin on pinfalls, and suddenly Austin gets a terrible looking leg lariat for the shock win. Quite fun stuff.

Rockin’ Rebel vs Don E Allen

Efficient, if not especially interesting, squash here. Rebel jumps Allen at the bell and doesn’t really let up. This is all basic stuff, just slams and punches, albeit well executed. Big piledriver finishes off Allen.

Sabu vs Terry Funk

This is for Sabu’s heavyweight title, and is a bit of a clipped mess. It’s no DQ, so we get some brawling on the outside to start, culminating in Funk slamming Sabu onto a table and then flattening him with a chair. Sabu eats a couple of piledrivers before we clip to suddenly find him in control. Well, that’s a bit jarring. We get a ref bump, Funk gets thrown through a table, and a load of interference from the Bad Breed, Shane Douglas, Sherri Martel and Paul Heyman, finishing with Funk on top for the win. Just a mess to follow thanks to the clipping and assorted chaos.

Pro Wrestling Australia - Release The Quackenbush

With a show title like this, you'd be forgiven for expecting an appearance by Mike Quackenbush, and you get one. Sort of. He's on commentary for the show, which is an odd reason to name the show after him, but they mention he's also been doing some training in the previous week. As a commentator, he's the best possible Mauro Ranallo, calling move names and referencing luchadors, but without the terrible puns, shit pop culture references and irritating yelling. So nothing like Mauro, I guess.

Chris Vice vs Robbie Eagles

Big size difference here, Vice is a big musclebound man, but he shows off some nice rounded edges to his work, hitting a nice leaping rana in the opening moments. He also shows some mat skills, at one point grabbing an Eagles big boot from the corner, whipping him down and tying him up on the mat. Later, as Eagles kicks out of a sitout powerbomb, he immediately grabs a leg, locking in an STF. Nicely, he adjusts as Eagles nears the ropes, switching to Rings of Saturn. His slingshot shoulderblock looked great and a sitout piledriver felt like the end. Eagles spends a lot of the match on the defensive, but gets a few chances to impress. His kicks looks weak in places, but a massive dive into the crowd is nuts, and the match-winning 450 splash is terrific. Good opener.

Juan Direction (Funny Juan, Giant Juan & Romantic Juan) vs The VeloCities (Jude London & Paris De Silva) & Mat Rogers

Juan Direction, as you can probably guess, are a lucha themed boy band, complete with microphone headsets incorporated into their mask design. The opposition has a less united front, as Rogers is a big beast of a man who seems disgusted to be teaming with the smaller, goofier VeloCities. He refuses a tag, leaving London and Paris to work the match, and they do so with some nice double teams. At one point, Romantic Juan misses a big high senton and the VeloCities hit a neat double legdrop. They look fluid until Giant Juan clotheslines De Silva from the apron, and the VeloCities find themselves struggling to get back in, at a permanent 3-on-2 disadvantage. That is, until Rogers tags himself in and just dominates. Nothing fancy, just big shoulderblocks and clotheslines, but they looked pretty beefy. He ends up 1-on-1 with Giant Juan, the largest member of his team, and a big boot and a pumphandle slam gives Rogers’s team the win.

Gavin McGavin vs Mehmet the Turkish Delight vs Luciano vs Jax Jordan vs Dean Valente vs Kai Drake

Getting a match like this with 6 guys you’ve never heard of makes it hard to get a read on these guys. You don’t get enough time to get a feel for what they can do, but the small snippet I got from each guy didn’t make me opposed to seeing more. Turkish Delight especially entertained, a tubby guy in a colourful singlet who the crowd seemed to love. His feud with the serious Gavin McGavin got the most focus in the match, and Delight seemed like a fun character. Some nice spots here – dug McGavin avoiding a Sliding D, adjusting his body to instead get a crucifix for two, Valente had a really nicely executed DVD and I liked the logic of Jordan still jumping for a leapfrog when McGavin pulls Delight from the ring as he runs the ropes, just looked a bit more natural and realistic that he wouldn’t be expecting Mehmet not to keep running at him. In the end, Luciano, who’d probably had the least ring time, got the victory with an inverted brainbuster, and this was fun junk food.

Shazza McKenzie vs Jessica Troy

This is for McKenzie’s PWWA title. Really liked this one, I’d seen bits from both women before that had been fine enough, but this was the kind of match that makes you a believer. Lovely mat work at the beginning, nice logical exchanges with McKenzie being one step ahead. The non-Quack commentator mentioned a shoulder injury McKenzie had suffered, so it’s not a big surprise that this soon becomes the focus of Troy’s offence. She takes over in a neat way, catching a boot on the apron and swinging Shazza face first into her knee, then zones in on the shoulder. Lovely Atlantis Clutch, followed by some high kicks directly to the shoulder. McKenzie sells it well for the most part, despite cartwheeling to safety at one point, as she runs the ropes slightly differently, arm kept close to the torso. McKenzie’s offence also switches to be mainly about the kicks and running knees, trying not to use the arm. Troy gets close to the win with a Fujiwara armbar and a great nearfall from a crucifix, but McKenzie locks in a quarter Nelson chicken wing for the tap. End slightly came from nowhere, but I loved this.

Matty Wahlberg vs Mr Juicy

This was stupid, but the right kind of stupid, daft fun rather than something that makes you embarrassed to like wrestling. It works due to the strength of the characters. Mr Juicy is a chubby guy in a doughnut singlet, who comes to the ring with some beers for a party. Wahlberg, in contrast, is a ripped, tanned jock with an entourage, who insults the amiable Juicy. It’s an easy story to understand and Juicy is a likable guy, so the fact some of this is a bit silly doesn’t matter as I got invested in the character, and primarily in seeing Wahlberg get his. Juicy gets early control with a clothesline, after one of Wahlberg’s has no effect on him, and the entourage of Carter Deams and Harley Wonderland both get involved. I assumed for a DQ, but it turns out they’d ambushed the ref, and left him lying on the floor with his shirt over his head. Juicy fires back, even taking out Wonderland with a keg (and this was quite well done. Juicy didn’t just level a woman with a barrel, he’d twice chosen not to attack her and paid the price, and Wonderland is a trained wrestler, so it didn’t feel uncomfortable). He piles up all three in the corner for a bare-arsed stinkface (and Wahlberg ducked, leaving poor Deams to take the brunt) before a clothesline to the back of the head of Wahlberg gives him the win.

The Four Nations (Adam Hoffman, Jack Bonza & Mick Moretti) vs SMS (SnapChad & Unsocial Jordan) & Big Fudge

This was also fun, it’s a match that is there to ultimately advance a storyline, but it did so effectively. Fudge is a small masked guy, who is tag title partners with Shazza McKenzie. However, Unsocial Jordan is her fiancé, and also in a rival tag team, and he’s not a fan of what he perceives as Fudge using her to gain success. Thus, they’ve got a very uneasy alliance here, which isn’t good as the Four Nations put on a united front. Thought this was good, albeit with some clunky comedy sprinkled in. SnapChad and Jordan both seem better than their gimmicky names would imply, but Fudge seems to be mainly schtick. His big move is an arse punch, that it’s hard for opponents to sell and still look credible. Loved some of the heel double-teaming, especially a sequence of tags, sentons and slingshot sentons on SnapChad that looked great, all three moved so quickly. A three man Poetry in Motion, with Hoffman skipping across two men’s back en route to the corner was neat.Jordan shows his annoyance at Fudge by shoving him out of the way, allowing Jordan to receive the hot tag, but Fudge still blind tags himself in for some comedy. The end sees Fudge join in with SMS’s finisher, but Jordan angrily gets distracted by this, allowing Four Nations to isolate SnapChad and crush him with a towering splash for the victory.

Michael Spencer vs Ricky South

Spencer is a short, angry little man, thus making him the perfect choice to fight South’s effeminate lipstick-wearing grappler. Spencer hits a lot of knee-based offence, so it’s lucky that all his jumping kneestrikes looked killer. However, he misses a knee in the corner, allowing South to take over. Nice delayed suplex, before he finishes Spencer with a head-in-trunks piledriver. A very brief match, but a good one while it lasted.

Jonah Rock vs Caveman Ugg

This is a street fight, and these two don’t hesitate to take it to the floor. These are some big boys, so it’s impressive how quickly they can move. At one point, Rock takes the time to chat shit at Quackenbush at the commentary table, only for Ugg to appear out of nowhere with a cannonball. Bless Mike Quackenbush for justifying Ugg finding a ladder near the ring by saying it was used earlier to put up a banner. The ladder comes into play as Ugg side slams Rock onto it in a big bump. It looked, and sounded brutal. Ugg monkey flipping Rock through a chair looked great, and Rock getting a Death Valley Driver was also nicely done. There’s a slightly goofy no-selling section, but Ugg IS a caveman, so it’s not surprising he’s unable to acknowledge the pain. Rock hits a superplex through a tack-covered table for two, in a great looking highspot, before levelling Ugg with a brick and hitting a brainbuster to win. Really neat main event.