Man the beginning of this is incredibly great as Sabu dives for his trademark single leg so Scorp hits him with a short kick to the face and then a leaping high kick with the crowd audibly gasping at both. They follow this up with a pretty decent mat exchange and then they take turns punching each other in the face hard as fuck. Scorp gets the upperhand and kicks the shit out of Sabu again. Scorp recovers on a relatively minor Sabu botched kick and they end up going back to it a second later with Sabu hitting a follow up plancha. Then Sabu throws Scorpio directly onto a fan. I mean Scorp essentially plancha'ed a dude in the front row. Sabu follows this up with a spring board dive into the crowd dropping a chair right onto Scorp's face. Sabu sets up a table bridging the gap between rail and ring and goes for an inside out rana but Scorp just drops him with a powerbomb and then hits a slingshot splash for a nearfall and a diving clothesline for another nearfall. Sabu does a really neat counter from a crucifix position and then hits a slingshot side kick that Scorp really took well as it was on the way to being a pretty questionable spot. A bit off on a reverse crossbody from Scorp though it actually made the move look more brutal so fuck it. Crowd starts chanting table and Scorp gives them the "one more second" hand gesture. Scorp hits a standing enziguri and a urange for a nearfall. God damn he just drills him with a standing knee drop and grinds his forearm into his fucking face on another nearfall. Sabu comes back with a tornado DDT and a slingshot moonsault for nearfalls and I really liked the way this was set up as it felt like Scorp had been taking too much time to put Sabu away. Sabu goes to the arm of all thing so Scorp rolls over on an armbar attempt and knees the fuck out of Sabu's face several times. Then he picks him up and powerbombs the shit out of him. Then we get an awesome diving legdrop for a nearfall. Scorp unloads on the floor with punches and kicks and then tosses Sabu into the crowd where he throws some more nasty strikes. They actually brawl to the back of the building and unfortunately the camera misses some of this. It picks up with Sabu getting thrown into a wall with his leg knocking a whole in it. Back in the ring Sabu wins a punch battle and hits a twisting splash but Scorp gets the knees up on a moonsault attempt and it looks like it might have killed Sabu. Scorp with a splash for a nearfall. Scorp face plants on a flip splash and Sabu follows up with a slingshot legdrop. This is the first thing in the match that really felt flat to me but I can't criticize it too hard because Scorp follows up by kicking Sabu's face in again and just casually suplexing him face first to the floor. Scorp takes the spine of a chair and drives it into Sabu's face, but Sabu fights back by knocking around with the chair a bit. He goes for a table spot but Scorp slides through his legs. Sabu lands on his feet and Scorp hits a forearm and runs the rope going for a crossbody onto the table but Sabu ducks and Scorp ends up hitting a plancha onto the table and god dam does it look nasty. Sabu goes to use a chair for a vaulting leg drop but Scorp ends up setting the chair up so Sabu leg drops the fucking chair. Scorp goes up top for a moonsault but misses. Sabu runs the ropes, leaps off the chair and Scorp gets to his feet so Sabu adjusts and instead of the triple jump hits an awesome spinning DDT for the finish. Spotty as fuck but totally awesome match. Post-match Scorp literally kicks Sabu in the face all the way to the dressing room.

Sabu vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (10/11/96)

- Surprised to see them go to the mat early. DIdn’t last long but the thought was there. Awkward strike exchange with Sabu randomly throwing in spin kicks. This is another match, similar to the last one, where I loved when Scorpio was on offense, not so much when Sabu was on offense. This was total traniwreck action but I didn’t love this nearly as much as Dylan. Sloppy Sabu moments and even an awkward Scorpio body press that bugged me. I won’t mind moving this forward for now but if there are even two better matches (the commercial match counts) then I would leave this one off. I may be the only one who feels that way.

The commercial is from Cyberslam 96 and I believe made SC Top fifty which puts it on the Set. I can watch that again soon, but the last two times I watched it I actually thought it was a disappointing match largely because Sabu was exceptionally sloppy in it. It also had the "please don't stop!" time limit gimmick which I am not a fan of except for very rare occasions. I have no problem watching it again to see if I'm wrong in that assessment, but from memory I think I would rate this match safely above THAT match. Whether it is a top two match from their series is another question altogether and one I will have to compare notes on.

Sabu vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (10/11/96)

 

I dug that they went to matwork early in the match as it was something you didn't expect to see here. Sabu would go on offense which was kinda hit and miss at times as he was missing stuff then of course tried it again which led to them going to a straight spotfest which was the match I expected to see. Scorp was pretty damn great on offense as he was hitting everything well and was using some big moves trying to put Sabu away who to his credit kept fighting back. They would brawl all over the building which was fun and kept the match moving as they were doing lots of stuff here. Both men then were going for big dives towards the end with Sabu getting the win and I think this moves forward easily.