El Puerto Ricano v. Taz

 

God Fonzy was so much better with Taz than he was at any other point. This is exactly what you want with Ricano hitting a cool move or two and Taz just fucking killing him with head drops. I swear Ricano is the best bumper EVER. Someone pass this along to Naylor as a potential wimpy for his next comp.

 

Steve Richards v. Mikey Whipwreck

 

Stevie is out with Bluedust which god help me is still really funny to me for whatever reason. Pre-match Richards claims he and Bluedust were supposed to be MCing the gay rights parade in NYC. Mikey turns down a truce early and starts out destroying the heels including two really good planchas onto Bluedust. Richards backs Mikey into the corner and goes for the "Bluedust" corner taunt and Mikey punches him in the dick and goes back to the headlock which is the base he is working for the match. Stevie finally takes control off of a really strange twisting electric chair into powerbomb spot that was sort of a dueling reversals thing. Then he punts Mikey in the balls. Mikey does a Funkesque weeble-wobble sell between the ropes and Richards ends up killing him with a powerbomb for a good nearfall. They do some pretty good back and fourth teasing momentum swings and Mikey finally has him down and goes up top only for Richards to drill him with an epic superkick which Mikey takes a huge bump for. Nearfall there was really great. Meanie comes in they do a duel crotching spot and then they go to a weird segment where Mikey is maintaining a serious demeanor while these two guys work comedy spots around him and he gets nearfalls. It sounds stupid and I usually hate shit like this but I thought it worked okay here. Not sure it was wise to have Mikey kick out of two superkicks in this one, but I was happy to see him win clean. Watching this next to the 95 match you can tell they are operating off of a blueprint and this was not as good as that match. But there was variation here and I think they were going for something different styllistically so I have no problem rubber stamping it.

 

Original FBI v. Bubba Dudley/Big Dick Dudley

 

God damn I love J.T. Smith. "I'm gonna kick there friggin ass!" Pre-matc J.T. sings and then threatens to walk out when the crowd shits on it. Gertner is the legit announcer here and is hilarious - "currently standing in the aisle..." J.T. introduces Primo Canera. Man I'm not going to go into all of this, but the whole pre-mach bit is pretty amusing. Man this match is ridiculous as Carnera is beating the shit out of the extra Dudleyz with chairshots, Bubba and JT are bumping huge, Carnera powrbombs Bubba, Carnera and Dick work the "big men" coming to blows gimmick and then brawl into the crowd where neither really sells for the other at all, et. FBI are working ludicrous double team spots involving multiple drop downs and leapfrogs. Then D-Von comes in and just starts beating people to shit with a chair. J.T. actually crawls into the crowd for some reason at this point and Guido just casually walks off. D-Von beats the shit out of the Dudz with chairs. Well I loved this but no one else is going to like this at all.

 

Bluedust v. Sandman

 

Bluedust attempts to seduce Missy Hyatt and gets caned and pinned. Jesus this show is ridiculous so far. And I love it.

 

Pitbull 2 v. Shane Douglas

 

The obnoxious bitch in the crowd keeps screaming random WWF wrestler names which pisses off Shane. The ringside brawling was actually fairly spirited here. Bearhug segment ending in what looked like something from Kama Sutra was uncomfortable moment. This was a basic, but pretty decent match. I almost hate to say it, but Douglas slapping Francine and then stealing a win on 2 was a pretty much perfect finish. Jericho coming out and having it reversed was just stupid though I did like the post-match Douglas freakout.

 

Brian Lee v. Dances With Dudley

 

This really wasn't much. Brawled around outside and back in the ring a chokeslam finish.

 

Eliminators v. Mikey Whipwreck/Chris Jericho

 

Standard Elims match. Goes on too fucking long, poorly put together, tons of spots - many of which don't look good at all - et.

 

Tommy Dreamer v. Raven

 

Match hat's entire purpose was to push Sandman/Tyler Fullington angle. Typical match of this kind with tons of run-ins, ref bumps costing Dreamer his first win v. Raven, et.

There is no way the FBI/Dudz match is a nomination but it is fucking awesome. We gotta have this as an extra.