Superstar Sleeze

AWA Southern Tag Team Champions Fabulous Ones vs Moondogs - Memphis 5/2/83 Stretcher Match One of the best violent, Southern tag brawls I have ever seen with a fantastic finish. They two teams just rip into each other the whole match. I love the double stomp and the Fabs use it liberally. They are clawing at the Moondogs eyes and raking their boots on their faces. There are no wrestling moves just fighting. Lane has a chain, but it goes flying out on a collision. Lane disoriented gets smashed in the head by the bone and ends up that Bloody Lane will be playing face in peril. This match sees Lane doing more selling, but Kerin is very active and adds that drama. I loved Keirn flying around to attack Moondogs, but always led to the other Moondog beating up Lane. Keirn was really great in this and Lane sold his ass off. Moondogs are really great at clubbering. Keirn just cant be at two places at once! Lane fires off some kicks, but gets cut off. Lane gets his knees up on a splash and after going to the wrong corner he makes it to Keirn. Keirn absolutely tees off on the Moondogs! He bites and claws at the Moondogs until one them bleeds! Keirn looks to send one of the Moondogs to the hospital, but his head gets trapped in the ropes! The way Keirn sells it by choking and then being lifeless. You totally buy that as a scary moment and something that could end the match as he is just hanging there with the Moondogs attacking. Lane fends them off with a chair, but calls for the bell. Lane stands over his lifeless partner with a chair in a great moment. The way the ropes snapped to let Keirn go was scary. I really loved this finish. Very dramatic and am a sucker for partner doing all he can to save and protect his partner. They put Keirn on the stretcher, but Moondogs topple the stretcher and Lane is pissed and tees off on them. A classic Southern brawl made even better by one of the all-time great finishes! ****1/2

AWA Southern Tag Team Champions Fabulous Ones vs Moondaogs -Memphis 4/4/83 They start hot and heavy as there is no love loss between these two teams. The Moondogs not only bloodied the Fabs, but they also tore their coats bequeathed to them by the Fabulous Jackie Fargo. Russell does a great job putting over the shame the Fabs felt having to tell the legendary Jackie Fargo what happened. I love the Moondogs' gimmick of being hillbilly caevman carrying around a giant dinosaur bone. The Fabs are all business. No monkeying around, just fists and kicking ass. I like the Moondog with the longer hair and the bigger beard the best. Really good stooge. Double teaming by Moondogs turns it in their favor. Lane is great at selling, but always peppering in those kicks and strikes to let you know he is there. Keirn is great in the same way; he does not let his partner twist in the wind. The Moondogs are very energetic and really fun clubbering offense. (loved the headbutts) Lane dives on their double clothesline attempt. Keirn is a fucking awesome house of fire. He throws a great fist. He really tears into the Moondogs, but falls prey to a bone shot and the Fabs lose the match to a really flat crowd response. No boos. Weird. Really enjoyable, standard southern tag. Feisty and energetic, which is how I like it, but no one spot stands out. Just very good wrestling. ***1/2

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Kane vs Steve Austin - WWF RAW 6/29/98 I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. I thought this was a very energetic match. I was impressed with Austin's performance. I loved his urgency. It was a full court press and he never let up on Kane. The clothesline off the apron was a great example of this. Kane had such a presence at this point that everything looks credible. Early on his heat segment was energetic but it did get chinlocky. Liked the Bearer shoe shot to Austin. Kane gets his choke slam to create some drama but Austin reverses Tombstone into Stunner. No comeback just Stunner. Fine. Stunners Undertaker as a receipt for the chair shot at KOTR. Good angle. Good energy. HUGE POP! Good match ***

The Wendell Cooley working the marks to make money off his pictures maybe the greatest carny thing I have ever heard. I fucking love it. I laughed really hard at the Scott (maybe it was Steve) Armstrong promo where he talks about the fan in the front row says "Nice guys finish last.". I thought that was funny as hell. The story of Beau getting Mempho thrown off Johnson City TV was one of the all-time best stories in wrestling history. I have learned so much and these are really fun shows.

Awesome segment!!! Everyone knocks it outta the park even Kane. My favorite part is the passing the buck from Vince to Bearer to Kane because the first two are too chicken to tell Austin to his face no. Loved this!

I agree with you the Payback match was better, but this was so incredible live. For me it was actually all the interference in the end, I did not think it was as well executed as Payback. Two Styles Clashes into the Spear was great. A more detailed review will come, don't want to mess with the memories just yet.

Worst match I have ever seen live. Dreadfully boring. The drunk guys screaming "CHRIS!!! THATS NOT HOW YOU WIN!" repeatedly was hilarious and the only saving grace of the first 25 minutes. I will say the first 25 minutes was awful. The final 5 minutes does save the match from being the worst match ever. I thought they did a great job building to the thumb tacks (Jericho's initial reaction was money) and the crowd did get re-invested in that stretch. The payoff was great. DDT onto tacks was nasty and freaked me out. So the final five minutes felt dangerous and violent, but first 25 minutes wow, so bad.

It is funny that the show I saw the greatest match I have ever seen live and I also saw the worst match I have ever seen live.

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Kane - WWF King Of The Ring 98 First Blood I liked this way more than I expected to. A really entertaining Attitude Era brawl with some really crazy, memorable bumps. Austin as the relatable, mortal beer-drinking redneck everyman against a monster was a good story. Austin is so "real" and Kane is so "unrealistic" it makes for a great pairing. Kane doing zombie sit-up after zombie sit-up at the beginning of Austin's crazy offensive flurry set the tone. I liked Austin going right for removing the turnbuckle pad and that's when Kane made his move began beating down the Rattlesnake. The hijinx with the Cell was fun. Austin took a crazy bump head first into half-lowered Cell. Then they teased having Kane hold him as the Cell would come down and crush him. Even Kane got in on the fun taking a wicked bump into the door and then as the Cell was going up suspending himself from his gut on the door. The arena brawling was heated. Austin tried to open up Kane from the back of the head using the exposed turnbuckle, which made sense. The Cell lowers and here is Mankind. Jesus! Stay down Mick! Stunner! STUNNER TO KANE! Now here is a hobbling Undertaker with a chair. Both Austin & Taker have chairs and Taker nails Austin's chair into his head. For some reason, Taker thinks this is a good time to revive the ref. Austin gets to nail Kane to stand tall, but he is bleeding so he loses. Wicked lame finish that is super protective of Austin. I actually thought the match was pretty good up until the run ins. I think there was an easy way to make this match even better and more heated. All it would have taken was one interview on RAW with JR asking, "Austin, how do you plan on making Kane bleed when he has that leather mask?". "I am take that stupid sumbitch's mask off, shove up his ass, expose his hideous, scarred deformed face, then I am going to bust him wide open and make him wish he died in that fire. If you want to see me take off that dumb freak's mask, give me a hell yeah? HELL YEAH!" Now there is a new wrinkle to intrigue fans will I get to see Kane's face. Then have the match worked around Austin trying to take off the mask, but ultimately failing. Anyways, the match we got was good, but a lame finish. ***

The Undertaker vs Mankind - WWF King of the Ring 98 Hell In A Cell Match One of the most iconic matches of all time, I will say one improvement undoubtedly of 2016 compared to 1998 is there is no way this match would have been allowed to continue after the second bump probably not after the first. The first bump is incredible for the sheer velocity. We saw Shane-O Mac fall from the top, but Foley was hurled from the top. I can't believe the fans were chanting for Undertaker as Foley was being carted out. I mean God, that just seems cold and callous. That second bump through the roof is even scarier because of the chair falling with him. It is incredible he landed the way he did each time that he did not die or paralyze himself. Undertaker must been like fuck, twice, are you shitting me? Looks like Taker jammed his ankle pretty good. The iconic image from my childhood was Foley in the corner with the sick bloody smile and the tooth sticking out his nose. Taker basically bumps for himself as Foley's shoulder is fucked up, is concussed and is loopy as fuck. Taker spears the cage. OW! Tacks get introduced. I forgot about this! Is this WWF debut of tacks? Foley eats the tacks twice, that Chokeslam looked painful. Tombstone ends it. Crowd redeems itself with a standing ovation and a decent sized Foley chant. A match everyone needs to see, but something I wouldn't call great. It is iconic.

The Rock vs Ken Shamrock - WWF King of the Ring 98 Chyna is bilingual! HHH is bi a lot of things, but lingual isn't one of them! LOL! Had read about this incident, but it way funnier to witness it. Pretty ho-hum match. For two great characters, I did not feel much character work in this. It came off very dry. Rocky bailed a couple times early, but I did not really get the sense Shamrock was overwhelming him. Good use of HHH at ringside to set up chaos and allow Rocky to hit a low blow. Weird layout. Rock gets his ass kicked all year, but escapes with the belt and this match Shamrock gets his win, but gets his ass kicked. Shamrock is decent at selling and Rocky is mechanically proficient. It is just pretty dry. Rock's DDT was pretty sweet and the People's Elbow was cool. Lots of nearfalls for the Rock, clearly for his protection. Thought Shammy's comeback was pretty muted. Liked Shamrock hitting a Northern Lights as a counter to Rock's third DDT attempt. Always a fan of flash submission, but just did not feel the drama in this match. Mechanically fine, but lacked drama and presence.

Loss is right except for in the middle of the summer he was programmed with the blackhole of suck the Wyatt's so people forgot about the Bryan, Lesnar and Big Show matches. By end of 2015, the Sheamus matches were great saw TLC live and that was awesome. The triple threat at Feb PPV was friggin bitchin. The HHH match I need to watch again because after 6 hours I was exhausted. The AJ matches are incredible. Badda bing badda boom Reigns is the realest guy in the room, how you doin?

I'm so glad I went to this show. I didn't think it was quite as good as Payback, but few are. So glad they saved Rollins bs for after the Match. Total stone cold classic! Probably the greatest match I've ever seen live!

I really hope this match involves Flair in drag

That should have been the opener. I have really good luck seeing awesome spotfests. Maryse is so hot. I hope Miz has Bischoff's gimmick.

Well the Vaudevillains are bygones

After watching Reigns/Styles at Payback, I saw an instant classic. Immediately bought tickets for this show in Newark. This morning rewatched match and I not only think it is Five Fucking Stars but the best match in 12 years. I'm so excited for the rematch. I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control! And I think I like it!

Really enjoyed Parv's opening story. Very funny.

I liked the build to Unforgiven. All the Austin/McMahon stuff was great and this match was really Austin vs McMahon with Dude Love as the surrogate because it is way too early to do Austin/McMahon. I actually like the Dude Love character more than most. They set up that Foley is pissed about Austin. The Foley character most associated with Austin is Dude Love. I think Foley was trying to stick to Austin by using his "friend" against him, but Foley doesn't get that Austin fucking wouldn't piss on Dude if he was on fire.

"That's called academia." It's funny because it is true. Killed me just now.

This totally rejuvenates the Mankind/Taker feud. It felt like Taker was feuding with Vince and Bearer this month and besides Mankind costing Taker the number one contenders spot not much build has been done until here. Kane was totally distraught about Taker attacking Paul Bearer at his home. Mankind says he will make it all right and delivers an incredible intense promo. It is scathing calling Undertaker a coward and promising revenge. Foley has been on fire as a promo this year.

Sable is so fucking hot in this segment. Austin can do no wrong. His big dead ass belongs to Austin. Human campfire was hilarious.

Edge sucked at acting right out of the gate. Shitty spear and then nearly kills someone. Edge is the worst. Also funny that Lawler and JR sometime call him The Edge

Yeah this has not been funny.

I feel like there has not been that much build up for this pairing of the foursome.