December 12, 201212 yr Author comment_5522421 Malenko immediately goes for Rice's knee and does some really nice work. Rice is a plucky babyface, which is completely different from the act he had in the PWA. (There was a 35-minute match he had against Jerry Lynn in PWA that we really wanted to include, but sadly it only exists on YouTube, and the guy who ran the channel never responded to requests to pick it up on disc.) This is a couple of minutes shorter than Rogers/Backlund, but I like it better, and it's a great showcase for Malenko's nice matwork.
December 25, 201212 yr comment_5523934 Good stuff from Malenko being pushed as a hot young babyface star, which hardly fits him but credit for trying. The tricked-out quasi-shootstyle matwork is sort of beyond Rice's capabilities, but he gives it a go even though he doesn't pull everything off.
December 25, 201212 yr comment_5523935 Holy fuck, you weren't kidding about Rice. In the Lynn match he's working a Raven/Jackyl-style prophet gimmick and coming out to the Doors "The End," which is an awesome out-of-the-box entrance theme about the last thing I expected to see ever.
January 7, 201312 yr comment_5526492 Good showcase match for Malenko. Everything he did hear looked really good and crisp. Thought this would have been a fine WCW Nitro or Saturday Night match.
February 3, 201312 yr comment_5532678 Malenko kept those same type of tights for a long time. Good mat match. Rice guy wasn't bad. Ending was botched as the bell was rung way premature before the referee counted three.
February 4, 201510 yr comment_5652935 Good opener to the TV show here, and a fine showcase for Malenko, who used at least five hundred of his thousand holds. Rice tried to keep up, but like most mere mortals, he couldn't. Karch doesn't guzzle DDP at every turn here like he did in the other match, which makes the commentary more tolerable. I liked DDP throwing in references to his past history with Rice from the AWA. The bell ringing during the final pin count must have been a botch, as the ref declared Malenko the winner anyway. I've heard of time-shaving in bouts, but this one went barely six minutes. Since almost all TV bouts have a ten-minute time limit, that means the bell rang over four minutes early, which is inexcusable unless they were actually trying for five-minute time limit matches, which would be utterly pointless. For the record, the IWA promoted here isn't recognized by Wrestlingdata.com despite having a cable slot on SportsChannel America. Also, according to Wikipedia, the promotion was actually based in Girard, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown. This makes me wonder why they decided to tape their TV in Orlando, of all places.
May 16, 20169 yr comment_5753017 I liked Rice trying hard here to keep up with Malenko. It didn't always work out but I'll always admire effort. Interesting match in the sense that it's kind of what Malenko would build his reputation on in the prime of his career.
March 18, 20178 yr comment_5792255 Malenko looks good in a feature match booked for that very purpose. Nothing great, but definitely a nice look at Malenko before he got to WCW.
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