Superstar Sleeze

One of the all time classic segments in Austin/McMahon nice to see it in full. I loved Austin balltapping McMahon and VinnyMac's reaction to it. It was weird when Austin pulled a camera out of his pocket. I am so used to the IPhone. It was just one of those strange moments. I really liked McMahon's "You promised!" too

Great promo by Cactus, but really not much in the way of crowd heat. He was still walking that line as face and heel. He was justified, but as JR pointed he sounded bitter even a bit whiny. So the fans were a bit confused. So we should boo or cheer. I never knew how they got from Cactus to Dude Love. This was a damn good setup.

Austin's reaction to being arrested by driving McMahon into lockers and then calling back to RAW say Vince's ass was grass was great. McMahon was awesome in his show me some respect and really get that feeling his hand was forced, but he also enjoyed that he got to put Austin behind bars.

I have never seen a lot of the Austin vs McMahon stuff from RAW. Lets dig in. This was an entertaining segment, nothing blowaway great. I like how Vince was not a full on, beat you over the head heel. In a lot of ways, Austin forces McMahon's hand to be such a heel because Austin was such a dick. Austin was pretty funny mocking Vince for saying he loved him. Vince was being more of the sterile annoying management type heel. Saying he was incapable of hate and trying to befriend Austin, but you can see through the veneer that he finds Austin repugnant. I think that's Austin's charm just as Vince says he is being genuine and Vince is a phony. I like Austin challenging the threat from McMahon. That's actually pretty reasonable thing from Austin to do. Then he Stunners him. Good stuff.

Brusier Brody vs Abdullah The Butcher - WCCW 8/4/86 It is King Kong vs Godzilla. The monster vs monster is alluring, but personally this match did not do much for me. The angle was Hart antagonizing Brody during a promo and Brody with his Adidas short shorts drags him into the ring. Brody did not have much presence on promos. Abby actually jogs pretty well down and attacks Brody. Hart chokes Brody with necktie while Abby uses his fork to stab the forehead of Brody this sets up the match. We find out that Abby will be the first to take a bump. Brody kicks Abby's head until bleeds, which does not take much. How many kicks does it take to bust Abby open could be like how many licks does it take to get to the center of Tootsie Roll Pop. Brody wants to hit him with mic and David Manning aint having that so he gets jabbed in the forehead by some long object. Hart will distract and Abby will jab. I actually liked Brody's selling by stomping around and using the ropes to hold him up. Abby headbutts Brody's bloody head with his own bloody head. That's insalubrious! Brody hulks up. Arena brawling. Brody attacks him with a wooden stake and it is a No Contest. Brody goes wild until Hart blasts him with a chair. Hart & Abby beat down Brody and there is a great shot of the bloody Abby biting the rope looking totally wild. I liked aura and vibe. The blood and some of the work was gripping, but they never really took it anywhere. I thought Brody's selling using the ropes to hold him up was really building some energy, but he did not really blow it off in a real climatic way. Good, but nothing I will remember, ***

WCCW TV Champion Chris Adams vs Buzz Sawyer - WCCW 6/16/86 Wrestling needs more fuzzy boots! I have loved Buzz Sawyer in everything has been in so far and this is no different. He is really good at acting off his rocker. I liked him constantly just biting Adams in whatever part of his body was closest to his mouth break the armbar. The arm work was set up nicely by Sawyer charging into a post early. Sawyer is like a better Brody. Same fuzzy boots, better at portraying crazed, he is always moving forward (little too much at times), but he will bump and sell too. I find Adams to be very technically proficient, but a bit bland prefer him as a face for this reason. Adams gets a crossbody for two, but misses the second one. Sawyer lunges him at with a headbutt then hits a brainbuster on the floor. Sawyer chooses the back as his target. I liked his bodyscissors with him constantly rubbing his hand in Adams' face. Adams actually showed some good fire and in the bearhug he was punching the injured arm he was working on so that was nice. SUPERKICK~! They definitely did not treat it like the finisher it looked like. It was a thing of beauty. Mad Dog pretty much just got up and caught Adams and hits a powerslam, which was impressive in its own right. The finish was a tussle over an inside cradle with Sawyer winning by grabbing tights. This is perfect TV title bout. Just strong fundamentals with a clear story arc Sawyer hurts his arm ->Adams works arm -> goes for crossbody one too many times ->Sawyer gets heat on outside then works back -> hope spots->finish. Finish could have been a little hotter that would have put this over the very good hump. I think Sawyer's antics were enough to make this more special than a routine match. Enjoyable. ***1/2

I saw this on Puro.TV and like the idea of bringing it here. I'll vote Yes on HHH vs Ambrose, Joe vs Balor, Brock vs Ambrose vs Reigns. HELL YES ON AJ VS REIGNS!!! I think that's in a clear tier above anything I have seen this year. Zayn vs Nakamura is way overrated. I vote No.

Chris Adams vs Gino Hernandez - WCCW 1/27/86 This was billed as hair vs hair, which I thought was odd given they just broke up a month ago. It turned out it was an angle, but it was an angle that went nowhere as Gino died five days later. Still it was a fantastic angle. Gino had the infamous Freebird hair cream. I loved Adams intensity early and Hernandez bumping for him. Adams missed a middle rope splash. Gino actually worked pretty strong on top. I feel like I got to see more Gino as a great heel in this match than in the tags. Gino missed a Tenryu elbow. I liked the symmetry. SUPERKICK~! Posts Gino a couple times, but he wants to dish out more punishment like a piledriver, but he isn't done. That arrogance gets the best of him as Gino tosses the Freebird Hair Cream into Adams' eyes. Always a classic angle. Adams writhes in pain drawing DQ. Could have been a huge angle. Too bad. RIP Gino. ***1/2

American Tag Team Champions Dynamic Duo vs Kerry & Kevin Von Erich - WCCW 12/25/85 The Von Erichs come out in masks and are called the Cosmic Cowboys. They take off their masks and the TV graphic has their real names. Adams & Hernandez feign disgust but the Von Erichs did not even really try to get he angle over. Kerry does wrestle barefoot. I like the trading of the Superkick and Discus Punch early as a hot start tit for tat early. People going for their finishers early shake these up and makes it feel like the match can end anytime and that the wrestlers want to win. Kevin is his usual frenetic self, great dropkick and then just blasts Gino. I totally buy Kevin's bodyscissors. Gino is in. I like the sign that says Fuzzy & Buzzy. Gino looks very fuzzy wuzzy. Kevin tags in Keryr who tags Gino with a Discus punch and then a Tenryu elbow but Adams saves. This leads to a very good heat segment on Kerry. I always thought that was the natural formula for the Von Erichs if they ever did a traditional Southern tag with Kerry doing the selling and the explosive Kevin as a hot tag. Of course, in World Class they usually just kicked ass. Adams sneaks a knee into Kerry's back as he makes a comeback. Thumb to the throat by Gino and this was taped on local Philly TV. Syndication could make you a lot of money. Lots of really goo double teaming to keep Kerry down. I love that about Dynamic Duo they really brought the fight to the Von Erichs. CLAW~! Double Claw~! Kevin gets in and now they are in stereo. Kerry reverses into sleeper and I like Adams falling off the top rope as he tried to save Gino. Head collision. Liked Kevin's eagerness to get in and almost falling into the ropes. Kerry charges with knee in corner and Kerry sells this fabulously. Gino works over the leg pretty decently and eventually gets the figure-4 on, which leads to Kerry putting it on Gino after he kneed the turnbuckles! Kerry really liked working with Flair. Hot tag to KEVIN! BODY SPLASH! A SECOND ONE! Such a great splash. Gino crawls and tags to Adams. CLAW TO ADAMS' HEAD! Vicious eye rake. Kevin misses elbow and Gino wont tag in. So Adams just throws him over the top rope for the DQ. Wicked lame! If you are going to do the break up angle, give the Von Erichs the belts so Adams can really be pissed at Gino. Von Erichs feel like afterthoughts which is so weird in Texas. Gino claims his knee was still bothering him and wants to be a team. Adams leaves in disgust. No Superkick!!! Booooooooooo! Lamest breakup angle ever! On the average, I prefer the Dynamic Duo matches to the Freebirds as they feel more competitive. The Freebirds had the best overall match at 7/4/83 perfect confluence of great wrestling and a nuclear crowd. The finish hurts this match, but I liked the heat segment on Kerry, great selling and good hope spots with great heel cutoffs. Probably the most traditional tag match in World Class. The finish just does nothing for me. ****

Kerry & Kevin Von Erich vs Chris Adams & Gino Hernandez - WCCW 10/6/85 Hair vs Hair Definitely lived up to the hype and build of this feud. This was the last shining moment of World Class as it was all downhill to probably one of the saddest most pathetic years in wrestling history, World Class in 1987. The Dynamic Duo are not happy that David Manning is the ref. I liked all the quick pins early. This match is not about hurting each other. It is about humiliation. The quick pin means you avoid getting your head shaved and you get to shave your rival's head. it makes sense to go for quick pins. Also, liked that unlike most Von Erich matches we do get some selling from the Von Erichs and real sense of heat. Kevin was fighting hard, but it was a thumb to the throat by Gino that turns tide. Adams really manhandled Kevin to force him to sell and it was a great performance from Kevin. I loved the Iron Claw to the abdomen as a hope spot only for Adams to come crashing down on Kevin. I thought the hot tag was not milked enough, but this is Texas so that is to be expected, but Kerry is so over there is still a huge reaction. The crowd wants to see Dynamic Duo lose their hair and Von Erichs to keep that every nearfall is super hot. Adams sells the Discus Punch so well. Kerry is a great hot tag such a great presence. SUPERKICK~! Damn, I love that move. Great nearfall. Kerry reverses a suplex into a sleeper hey this isn't a Flair match. Gino interferes and Kevin trips over Kerry to get to Gino. I love that type of chaos. The heels switch out. Adams comes up short on the Superkick and DISCUS PUNCH! Does anyone sell it better than Adams? Kerry charging into corner and Kevin is great trying to corral his brother into his corner. Gino slams a chair into Kerry and KEVING IS PISSED! Everyone arms themselves with chairs. Kerry milks the count. Gino applies sleeper on Kerry. They knock heads the favorite spot of the 80s. Both tag out and Kevin meets Adams in the middle and overwhelms him. Nice dropkick and big bodyslam. Misses kneedrop. Kevin never hits those moves. Adams hits a great suplex really gets some nice force on it. Kerry and Adams slugfest. CLAW~! Gino interefers. Kerry fighting with Gino. SUPERKICK~! Powder into Kerry's face, but Kevin cross body. Powder into Adams' face and Kerry rolls up for win. The hair cutting post-match is great. Adams gets the Friar Tuck hair cut and Chris Von Erich tackles the escaping Gino and they give him the Missing Link haircut. You cant separate the great post-match from the great match together they form a classic wrestling moment. ****1/2

You know whats even funnier is that Funk does not even get to advance to the finals. Orton is the one who faces Adonis in the finals...maybe I should track that down...hmmmmm.... Totally agree, Matt!

Going to watch the main event again. First impression was a absolute stone cold classic and the best match since Bryan vs HHH at Mania 30. The pacing and selling were unbelievable. Just so so so incredibly good. I think they managed to overcome the booking. I liked it so much, I bought tickets for Extreme Rules on the announcement of a rematch.

First thoughts and prayers to Enzo. ROLLUP fucking bullshit finish. Owens wins fucking clean. Whatever New Era my ass

National Heavyweight Champion Masked Superstar vs Butch Reed - GCW TV 8/22/81 Masked Superstar as the champion is feuding with a whole lot of people like Tommy Rich, Mr. Wrestling II and Steve O. Now on TV he has young upstart Butch Reed. Really fun TV match that Superstar gives a lot to Reed. Eadie stayed true to his form he would start out as the aggressor only to have Reed overwhelm him with power and technique. Reed looked great with his crossbody, punches and arm work. Superstar took his powders only to eat a headlock. Anybody have a better headlock than Reed? Reed did some nice arm work. I liked Superstar snapmaring out of a hammerlock only to have Reed keep it on. This was the start to a great 20-25 minute match unfortunately there was only two minutes left. Reed ate mat on a flying shouldertackle attempt and then a lariat followed by a Cobra Clutch was the finish. Reed looked like a future star. Superstar was definitely generous and made Reed look like a million bucks. Good TV match. ***

Harley Race vs Barry Windham - CWF TV 7/4/83 Harley is the World's Heavyweight Champion at this point, but this is non-title. The beginning is the usual Harley bombfest with no rhyme or reason, tons of momentum shifts, no struggle. It just feels like an exhibition. Barry was great at selling and firing up, but Harley just refused to take advantage of this. Barry tried. I would say between this and the Bass match that by 83 you could safely call BW a great wrestler. After the first commercial break, the moves started to matter and the drama built. You got that real sense of veteran champion against young upstart. Harley bashing his head into the post and really following up his moves and actually stringing them along to build to the drama of Barry's comeback. So Barry could sell and that selling led to a hot comeback with great strikes and him busting Harley open, which is great revenge. Contrast that to the opening match where because Harley would bump and feed and then hit move there was no drama and there no feeling of Barry proving himself because there was no challenge. It does get a little move trade-y at the end, but the double juice and excitement help assuage my feelings of annoyance. Windham misses the big lariat, but gets an O'Connor Roll to score a HUGE upset!!! Really nice finish. Harley is pissed and wants to piledrive BW on the floor, but Dusty saves only to be piledriven himself. Second half is very good and overall an entertaining TV match with a cool finish. ***

Big ups to Steven (Grimmas) for all his effort in putting this together and overseeing it. Great job!

Cant wait for Matt's head to explode!

Jack Brisco vs Buzz Sawyer - CWF 11/18/81 High stakes in this Florida TV studio bout as Gordon tells us the winner will be in line for NWA World Title shot and Flair is out to watch the match. Really smooth, technical match. Brisco's arm drags are great and I love how fluid his transition from a hiptoss into a short armscissors is. I love the rolling short arm scissors. Sawyer plays it great with tights on the roll up. Brisco accidentally gets caught with a knee on a criss cross and Sawyer does from great work on the arm. Again it is on a criss cross the match is decided, Sawyer goes for a bodyslam in motion but Brisco jumps high and topples him with a Thesz Press to get the three. Fun and brief.

Awwwwwwww shucks, you know how to make a couple guys feel like a million bucks! I would really to hear people's thoughts on our number 1's and my argument for them to be number one.

Matt D with a post of the year candidate! Cracked me up!

I know I saw the date of the match and that it had like 8.5k views and was shocked that no one was talking about it. I tweeted Charles, Pete and Dylan and was totally prepared for them to tell me they had seen it like five years ago. The only reason I believe it has not been talked about was because it was from Southwest and that's pretty unexplored. I found it by accident trying to see if Terry Funk vs Tully Blanchard existed from Southwest. Orton's performance was great, I should have went more into detail about his punches and his selling! His selling was phenomenal heel selling. Loss, I can totally see 4.5 given it was 20 minutes and a draw. I don't see anything lower than that. I got 4.75 just because how well connected everything was.

I think I will definitely enjoy World Of Sport given what you, Matt and others have said about it. I want to completely master American and Japanese wrestling, first is all. So in like 5 years I will catch up to everybody!

Everyone stop what they are doing and watch Terry Funk vs Bob Orton from May 26, 1983 Southwest World Championship Tournament. I am not even going to spoil any awesomeness. I gave it ****3/4. Incredible narrative building. One of the most logically progressive matches ever!

Terry Funk vs Bob Orton - Southwest 5/26/83 Southewest World Championship Tournament Kudos to the modern guy who does commentary on this. He was not half bad and got the psychology over pretty well. Holy shit! Why has no one talked about this match? Probably because it happened in Southwest! This may be the most logically progressive match I have ever seen. Like every move that one did to the other caused a reaction and had a consequence. It was a beautifully constructed narrative. Easily one of the best matches of 80s. They start off with mutual respect deal and it is chippy, but respectful. Then Funk starts elbowing the back of the neck. Then he slaps Orton. That's the story of the early part of the match. Funk is disrespecting Orton and it backfires on him! Orton gets madder and madder. First Orton whips him into the corner hard and he goes to work on the back. Some of the best bearhug spots you will ever see and again Funk is using elbows and non-technical ways to get out. Finally, when Orton goes for a pin, Funk kicks out and LUNGES at him with a nasty JYD-style headbutt. It was one of the nastiest I have seen Funk throw. He throws two more nasty ones crawling at Orton hard. Orton takes a breather, but now Orton is fucking pissed. He gets in the ring and now he is slapping Funk. He throws Funk out hard right onto the Japanese photographer. Orton basically turns heel mid-match because Funk was being a dick to him! Plus we get two Orton control segments back to back that are totally friggin different!!! HOW COOL IS THAT! Funk's selling is so fucking awesome. Those Orton punches and Funk holding on for dear life on the apron. Holy shit! BEST PART OF THE MATCH: Funk sort of half falls into Orton and half tries to attack him and Orton sees he is in a position for the piledriver and hits it for two. That's what I mean by logical progression. Funk single leg pick up and just goes all out on the knee hoping to escape this match with the Spinning Toehold. Rake of the eyes because Orton is a douche. Funk is so sympathetic. Bang heads! HUGE Suplex Struggle! FUNK WINS TO EARN HIS CONTROL SEGMENT! God Bless this match! Funk works over the knee with a variety of toe holds, but is still out of it cant put Orton away. Orton crotches Funk on the top rope out of desperation. Orton is great in this. Orton brutalizing Funk with rights. SLUGFEST! We are getting it all. FUNK BALLSHOTS ORTON WITH HIS LEG! Perfect. Funk atomic drop and punches. Bell rings for a draw!!! NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!! Still brawling! I could have watched another 20 minutes of this easy. Nearly perfect wrestling. Only reason not to go ***** is it just does not feel complete. Like they had so much more to give. Awesome, awesome. ****3/4

Terry Funk vs Mark Lewin - Big Time Wrestling Detroit TV 1978 It is mayhem on Professional Big Time Wrestling out of Detroit. Terry Funk has a bone to pick with Mark Lewin and some incendiary remarks about Detroit Rock City. I love the big time wrestler interrupting a squash match to have an impromptu match. Funk is really good in this. Lewin is fine throws some nice punches and seems legitimately pissed. Lewin is working the arm. Funk's selling is great and Funk is the one providing the energy. Funk trying the headbutt to get out only to sell the headbutt was great. The finish was great with Funk and Lewin brawling in the crowd and Lewin jabs a wooden stake into Funk head. Only for Cleveland Browns Water Johnson to hit Mark Lewin with a slapjack. Funk is bleeding, Lewin is the on the ground. a Browns football player is a heel in Detroit and Detroit is chanting "We Want The Sheik"! Awesome ending.