Gillberg, Gunn & Goons - WWF No Mercy (UK) 1999

Grapple City Rewind hits double digits with a trip across the pond to WWF No Mercy (UK) 1999. Bradley and Aaron unpack this Attitude Era oddball where Austin, Taker, and Triple H battle in front of 4,000 airhorn-blowing Brits. Was it a hidden gem or just a glorified house show? Spoiler: lots ref bumps and overbooked chaos. Plus, the crew pays tribute to the late, great Sabu. Fast forward or rewind? Let’s break it down.

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00.04
Aaron
Okay, let's check and see how this waveform looks now. Oh, much better. Okay, cool. cool. Hey, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow, leave us a review, cut a promo on us, anything goes.

00:11.33
Aaron
It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you. All right, cue that music.

00:16.66
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the VHS era pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history. Today we're heading across the pond to Manchester, England, May 1999 for a rare attitude era, UK only show that featured Austin and Taker and Triple H and about 4,000 dudes with whistles in the crowd.

00:42.71
Bradley Palermo
show that screams attitude era chaos with all the mcmahon helmsley bullshit but still delivers some pretty wild moments if you remember this one or you were in the crowd blowing that damn air horn hit us up at grapple city pod on instagram or leave us a voicemail at 626-657-SLAM love to hear you i'm bradley palermo here as always with aaron fink aaron how you doing

01:04.86
Aaron
Good man, how are you?

01:05.84
Bradley Palermo
Not too bad we saw backlash the other night maybe we should talk a little current product before we get into the rewind.

01:11.04
Aaron
Sure, yeah. Backlash was a thing. It happened. it was on Saturday. It was in St. Louis. It was fine. I didn't... ah It was fine.

01:21.17
Aaron
i There was nothing wrong with it, but I also wasn't like blown away by it. I feel like it was a solid B show.

01:25.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:27.76
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think, you know, St. Louis is where I grew up, so it's my old stomping grounds, and Randy Orton is, you know, a hometown hero, and yeah, I think he grew.

01:32.63
Aaron
He's your guy.

01:35.19
Aaron
He's from the loo, like you.

01:36.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's he's from the western outreaches of of St. Louis like I am. I think he went to Eureka High, and I was a couple miles down at Lafayette, so or as we called it, Lafayette.

01:47.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:48.16
Aaron
He's is only a little bit older than you, right? you You're kind of close-ish to him in age, I think.

01:51.65
Bradley Palermo
He's got to be close in age. He might be like, I don't know. 43. He 47 or something.

01:55.57
Aaron
How old is he?

01:55.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. he might be forty seven or something

01:57.07
Aaron
think he's I think he's a little older. Yeah, he's 45.

01:58.91
Bradley Palermo
yeah

02:00.84
Aaron
yeah, you guys were there at the same time.

02:01.21
Bradley Palermo
45 close yeah so my my friends in st louis that were at the show and stuff are really excited to see randy orton and they so all all still have faith that randy's got another title run in him which i was always kind of like i don't i think at this age you know he he only does a couple of matches a year and we're probably not going to get it it would have been cool to see him have it for transition transitional moment with the john cena thing where but but uh yeah

02:11.66
Aaron
Yeah.

02:22.71
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, he he could he could definitely have a run. you know, you you look at I mean, even Cody, every w WWE champion from 2019 until now, I guess there's only been two or three, but they all you know, they don't have they don't wrestle all the time.

02:36.06
Bradley Palermo
Right.

02:38.79
Aaron
So he could be probably pull it off.

02:39.32
Bradley Palermo
True. Yeah.

02:49.40
Bradley Palermo
Right.

02:53.00
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

02:56.74
Bradley Palermo
Right.

03:04.34
Aaron
I could take my time and go really, really slow.

03:06.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

03:06.86
Aaron
And it's still just as effective as spot fest, you know, crazy paced match. And I, you know, I appreciate that.

03:12.12
Bradley Palermo
That's true. Yeah. And it was, it was so cool to, it was cool to see him walk out to a hometown crowd and, um, the match was kind of fun.

03:19.81
Bradley Palermo
I mean, too many ref bumps, you know, but and

03:22.50
Aaron
yeah Well, it reminded me of like everything we've been watching. You know, one thing that's never changed is ref bumps.

03:26.84
Bradley Palermo
right.

03:29.06
Aaron
Ref bumps will always be a thing.

03:29.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Big part of wrestling, but yeah, I mean, he, had seen pinned so many times and then, yeah, still lost.

03:37.07
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, we, you know there's always a chance, right? In wrestling, anything could happen, but I didn't think that John was going to lose here. It doesn't really make the most sense.

03:48.15
Aaron
I don't know who he's going to lose to probably Cody.

03:48.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

03:51.96
Aaron
and just like, yeah, just like way down the road or

03:51.96
Bradley Palermo
It probably goes back to Cody.

03:54.85
Aaron
Um, it was a fun match. I, it was probably the best match on the card. I think, you know, they were all,

04:01.41
Bradley Palermo
Nothing else is even jumping out in my mind right now, but yeah.

04:05.00
Aaron
yeah, we got to, we got a Jeff Cobb debut in WWE. That's cool.

04:09.54
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

04:10.17
Aaron
Jeff Cobb is a beast of a man and a very, very strong dude. I saw him at Ring of Honor when they were at the Galen Center a couple of years ago. And yeah, he's he's an impressive dude.

04:19.76
Aaron
Very strong. I'm excited to see what they do with him.

04:22.28
Bradley Palermo
WWE has gotten rid of ah bunch of people, but they've it seems like they've secured a lot of people lately too. They're kind of switching up the lineup a little bit.

04:29.60
Aaron
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I, you know, if you want to talk about the releases for a minute, I guess we can. I, It sucks, right? You never want to see people get fired, especially if they're people that you as a fan are invested in or want to see do more stuff.

04:46.24
Aaron
So I totally understand that.

04:46.53
Bradley Palermo
Right.

04:47.60
Aaron
But at the same time, it's business. It's a job. Like people get let go from jobs all the time. I know. that some of the people that got let go weren't given an opportunity in the eyes of the fans to really prove themselves and get over.

04:59.70
Aaron
But that's just the way business is. Sometimes you don't get the opportunity to do what you should have the opportunity to do. So I hope that everyone that was released goes off and does great stuff elsewhere because there's plenty of places to wrestle in 2025.

05:12.39
Bradley Palermo
And plenty of websites to make money off of when you make it after you leave WWE.

05:18.45
Aaron
is true. That is true. I suppose we can get into the actual pay-per-view now. This was ah an interesting one. I picked this one. Initially, I thought that the idea of pay-per-view that was in the UK at a time when there weren't really pay-per-views in the UK was interesting.

05:34.43
Aaron
What made it more interesting to me is that this pay-per-view was actually not available in united states in the United States at all. It was only on United Kingdom pay-per-view platforms.

05:44.39
Aaron
And this was because at the time, ah all of the pay-per-views that took place in the US were actually shown for free in the UK up until I think maybe 97 or 98.

06:09.89
Aaron
making them feel like they were special and introducing them to what it could be like. And um i thought this was going to be a fun one. But in reality, this was just kind of like a glorified house show.

06:20.88
Aaron
That being said, it was kind of interesting, especially for us to be dropped in in the middle of like a it's what seems to be like a four or five month long storyline with Shane McMahon, the son of Vince McMahon, and

06:21.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

06:34.49
Aaron
Triple H, The Undertaker, and a slew of other people, and they are called The Corporate Ministry. So they're like the heel group of the time. They're feuding with pretty much everybody who's not in The Corporate Ministry.

06:46.71
Aaron
and And this pay-per-view just starts with a promo. It starts with Shane and everyone in The Corporate Ministry coming down to the ring. So I know I said Triple H and Undertaker. They also have APA

06:57.65
Aaron
apa or Farouk or slash Ron Simmons and JBL. They have Paul Bearer. They have China. They have someone called Midian, who I feel like was Phineas Godwin when I was a kid and watching.

07:05.14
Bradley Palermo
This.

07:10.01
Aaron
So they changed him. And then Viscera, who was Mabel. Do you remember Mabel?

07:14.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Men on a Mission was was a big tag team like when I was a lot in like 94.

07:17.42
Aaron
Oh, yeah.

07:19.03
Bradley Palermo
It was Mabel and somebody. I don't know, but Mabel was kind of like, he's basically playing like sort of a happy major chord hip-hop guy, like tag team back again, like that kind of shit.

07:30.86
Bradley Palermo
And now he's like big, heavy, fat, like Marilyn Manson, black Marilyn Manson, basically. Yeah.

07:38.17
Aaron
what a terror viscera is a terrible name my god it's just gross

07:41.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's gothy and creepy and huge.

07:45.94
Aaron
yeah well that was the whole gimmick of the whole group right is they're all like gothy and

07:45.87
Bradley Palermo
and Yeah.

07:50.02
Aaron
dark and ominous and demonic whatever, you know, I don't know, whatever the Undertaker shtick was, you know, they were all kind of like molded there.

07:56.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you kind of had a... They kind of had a carny vibe, like all these all these huge, oddly-sized men like with little um Shane McMahon leading them.

08:05.06
Aaron
Yeah.

08:07.41
Bradley Palermo
And even Paul Bear, he didn't really have that funeral director look anymore. he kind of just looked like some sort of arm boy or something.

08:13.79
Aaron
Yeah, he was normal. i thought that was really funny.

08:16.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

08:17.94
Aaron
So they're a weird bunch.

08:17.88
Bradley Palermo
I was like, I don't know what this carny crew is up to. is This is... mean, I don't... Maybe not the best part of the Attitude Era. I don't I probably picked it.

08:24.74
Aaron
It's a short time. So like i I was watching around this time.

08:25.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

08:28.94
Aaron
I don't know how much, like if I was watching every week or anything like that, but I i was, i was aware of what was going on. And um yeah, after doing some research, this group, I think they only lasted like six months.

08:40.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I can see that.

08:40.93
Aaron
And what it ended up being, i think the end of it all was that, you know They had been alluding to someone who was working in the you know in the shadows and calling all the shots for the corporate ministry, and it turns out that it was Vince.

08:57.96
Bradley Palermo
Right.

09:04.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I liked to i like the setup the black ring the the black ring posts and the red ropes. There's no, you know, like all the stuff we watched back then, there's no like LED dude wipes stuff flashing on the ring.

09:16.65
Aaron
That's true. I did the Morgan and Morgan in the middle of the ring during backlash was super distracting. My God.

09:22.62
Bradley Palermo
Oh, but you know what? ah Morgan Morgan, that's, I mean, there's nothing like ah personal injury attorney like shit on the ring.

09:28.15
Aaron
Yeah, like the scuttiest personal injury attorneys like Jacob M.

09:28.97
Bradley Palermo
that God. And then, I know.

09:32.63
Aaron
Ronnie.

09:33.43
Bradley Palermo
And then um on one of the turnbuckles, it had a QT, a quick trip logo, which, Back home, Quick Trip is like the best gas station.

09:41.60
Bradley Palermo
has like every kind of soda on fountain that you could imagine.

09:43.43
Aaron
Nice.

09:44.62
Bradley Palermo
like Every kind of like little treat or micro, it's got microwaves everywhere. um you know, you used have to get these like bagel things that were full of cheese called ripp and Dips.

09:53.98
Aaron
Oh.

09:53.89
Bradley Palermo
And and and and and and you never wait in line at Quick Trip. Like you, they look at you, what's in your hand? And they're like, $7.98. $7.98. seven ninety eight

10:02.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and then, and it's just crazy. And then they'll change flies back at you. Like they're like math, you know, geniuses.

10:08.28
Aaron
I've never been to one.

10:08.37
Bradley Palermo
And I was like, was like, yeah, I was like, man, theyre they are in St.

10:09.05
Aaron
i don't, I don't think they have those on the West coast.

10:13.25
Bradley Palermo
Louis. There's quick, I never thought I'd see quick trip on a turnbuckle. So, all

10:18.11
Aaron
Yeah. None of that uh, in 1999 in the u k

10:21.83
Bradley Palermo
right, let's get back to it.

10:23.36
Aaron
Yeah, the that was so the the promo at the beginning is basically Shane McMahon hyping up pay-per-view, hyping up the matches, how all the people in his group are wrestling, and how they're all going to win because they're the best.

10:34.51
Aaron
So once that's done, we get into the first match of the evening, Tiger Ali Singh versus Gilbert. And yes, you heard me right. I said Gilbert, not Goldberg.

10:45.90
Aaron
My God.

10:49.82
Aaron
I have.

10:55.50
Bradley Palermo
Goldberg, of course, being the big star on the other channel at this time, and then Gilbert was...

10:59.74
Aaron
in WCW.

11:00.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and Gilbert is a smaller...

11:04.33
Bradley Palermo
less impressive but does all the same mannerisms this is a pair of hilarious parody of of Goldberg and he's just out there to just get squashed I guess

11:13.81
Aaron
Yeah, well, we, you know, we start off with Tiger Ali Singh coming to the ring. He's a snobby Indian heel, which is really funny because he has no accent whatsoever.

11:24.04
Aaron
He's just like a guy from New York who happens to be Indian. And like, I'm so much better than you and blah, blah, blah.

11:27.77
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah, it's been like he's from, I think his accent, I think, sounded like he was like from Chicago or something.

11:30.20
Aaron
Yeah.

11:34.60
Bradley Palermo
i think he's Canadian though.

11:35.12
Aaron
Yeah.

11:35.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

11:36.12
Aaron
Okay, well, you know, pretty average heel promo. And then ah and then they then they start to introduce Gilbert and they do it in the same way that Goldberg was introduced in WCW.

11:47.40
Aaron
check everyone should check out bill goldberg if you haven't seen him he was pretty awesome he only did a few things he's kind of a one-trick pony but he was fun anyway so gilberg is you know making fun of goldberg he is a much skinnier dude i'm pretty sure he's wearing a bald cap if he didn't shave his head he's making ridiculous noises kind of like goldberg but you know exaggerated to the nth degree

12:03.88
Bradley Palermo
yeah

12:10.05
Aaron
it was so dumb my god i mean i get what they're doing you had you had the commentators uh jim ross and jerry the king lawler making fun of goldberg as gilberg was coming out was yeah and they're all like gilberg

12:20.97
Bradley Palermo
You know what i'd like about the the intro? It's, you know, because when Goldberg comes out, it's kind of like a deep deeper chant. Goldberg. They kind of have this, like,

12:30.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's like, yeah, whatever the chants is, it's kind of more like pathetic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yes like

12:39.26
Aaron
Yeah, you I mean, it's it was a joke that lasted like five minutes. That was only funny to me for the first like 20 seconds.

12:48.37
Aaron
So, you know, dumb match Gilbert gets squashed.

12:48.82
Bradley Palermo
yeah

12:51.45
Aaron
This was only in there to be making fun of WCW at the time. So on we go to the next one.

12:55.33
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it didn't seem like anyone really cared too much, even after I was playing.

12:58.48
Aaron
No, I don't think they did it. What was it like a minute long or something?

13:08.37
Aaron
This was a good match.

13:12.08
Aaron
Mm hmm.

13:21.06
Aaron
Yeah, dude.

13:21.60
Bradley Palermo
Again, we already said we have goth Mabel and all that stuff.

13:21.91
Aaron
Oh my God.

13:24.86
Bradley Palermo
But you know what I'm surprised? surprised? I think this is the first time I ever saw a bear hug get like a huge crowd pop.

13:31.49
Aaron
Yeah, was a good bear hug.

13:31.50
Bradley Palermo
Edge had one of them in a bear hug.

13:32.45
Aaron
but

13:35.01
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

13:35.07
Bradley Palermo
And the crowd was like going nuts. Like, whoa, that's not the most exciting move, you know?

13:37.73
Aaron
Yeah, UK crowd.

13:40.50
Bradley Palermo
But he had him going.

13:42.37
Aaron
Yeah, he did.

13:42.29
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he I guess he did have him lifted up. who who was in that bear hug?

13:45.33
Aaron
It was probably Bradshaw giving it to Edge or Christian or something. Christian would probably, because Christian was taking a bunch of the the punishment for like five, ten minutes of that match, and then and then he hot tagged to...

13:57.91
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

14:00.60
Aaron
Gangrel? I don't This, dude, the brood entrance...

14:01.67
Bradley Palermo
yeah

14:05.07
Aaron
is still to this day fucking awesome. i It gave me goosebumps all over my body, and I was just sitting on my couch watching it. So I love the music. I love the vibe. I love the lights.

14:17.54
Aaron
love Gangrel drinking and spitting out the blood. Triple H stole that from Gangrel because he wasn't doing it yet. So that's that's what I say.

14:23.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

14:24.40
Aaron
That's my my take on the situation. But yeah, this was a standard six-man but... standard sixpan tag but Man, they were they were hitting each other hard. It looked good. Everything was snug. And the storyline here, I guess, was that the brood was a part of the ministry and then broke off.

14:41.19
Aaron
So now they're good guys.

14:42.81
Bradley Palermo
yeah

14:43.22
Aaron
But yeah, the bad guys were doing bad guy stuff. And you know they had control the match for several minutes until the brood was able to make a hot tag. But still, it wasn't enough because Bradshaw got the pin and the corporate ministry came out with the win.

14:56.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I had that but it was more about the entrances than the work rate, which I mean, the entrances were cool.

15:00.60
Aaron
But the work rate was good, though. I mean, like Bradshaw and Farouk are really good. Man, such intensity.

15:06.90
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

15:18.64
Aaron
I will say this was the match where I noticed how many times the commentators had said no mercy And I think I was already at like, they've said it 10 times and this pay-per-view has gone on for 15 minutes.

15:25.33
Bradley Palermo
call card.

15:29.30
Aaron
Yeah.

15:30.15
Bradley Palermo
How many times, like, because the the main event is a no-holds-barred match, and how many times throughout, like, later tonight we have a no-holds-barred, no-holds, no-rules, no-holds-barred.

15:42.25
Bradley Palermo
It's just like, God, they say it's a no-holds-barred match. So then we go on to Steve ah ah but steve Blackman and Droz.

15:49.100
Aaron
yeah

15:51.60
Bradley Palermo
Is that say Droz? Droz?

15:53.41
Aaron
Draws.

15:54.13
Bradley Palermo
Ross, Josh.

15:55.17
Aaron
Referee by Teddy Long. Did you see that?

15:57.37
Bradley Palermo
I was thinking like, is Peanuthead in the fucking referee?

15:59.100
Aaron
Yeah, dude.

16:01.05
Bradley Palermo
And they don't even then you can draw attention to that, right?

16:01.32
Aaron
Yeah.

16:03.25
Bradley Palermo
They're just kind of like, he's just a rat.

16:17.92
Aaron
ah

16:19.100
Aaron
I don't know.

16:20.20
Bradley Palermo
Dude.

16:20.94
Aaron
Yeah.

16:21.74
Bradley Palermo
How, I've never really seen that transition before from um like a character to referee.

16:25.22
Aaron
Yeah.

16:28.11
Bradley Palermo
I mean, i know like,

16:29.45
Aaron
I think it was the other way around for Bill Alfonso in ECW. He was a ref first and then became like a manager.

16:33.16
Bradley Palermo
oh, okay. Yeah, another whistle blowing guy. um lot of whistle blowers in this business.

16:41.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, no, Droz, Droz. um

16:44.38
Aaron
Draws.

16:45.41
Bradley Palermo
draws

16:46.08
Aaron
Puke, remember?

16:47.27
Bradley Palermo
I was going to say, I always just, um it's terrible when I see him because ah remember Beyond the Mat when he was being interviewed by McMahon. He was like an ex-football player and they were showing what it's like to know recruit a new wrestler. And his thing was that he could puke on demand. And in that documentary, documentary, Vince is like, he's going to puke. He's going to puke.

17:10.46
Aaron
I remember this.

17:11.95
Bradley Palermo
when

17:11.77
Aaron
Yeah. Drozdanov.

17:12.45
Bradley Palermo
i And then, you yeah, of course, he was paralyzed in a match with D'Lo Brown during SmackDown SmackDown taping not too long after this in 99.

17:14.19
Aaron
Drozdanov, sorry.

17:19.76
Aaron
Yeah.

17:22.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, botched running powerbomb. So was a parent he was became a paraplegic. No, quadriplegic. I think he later gained some movement in his his like arms. But um I think that's a thing that I always think about when I see...

17:35.64
Bradley Palermo
uh a hard land or something that looks dangerous in wrestling i'm like always remember that guy from beyond the mat uh who ended up paralyzed and fucking i don't know man man ah but um the match the match itself uh i don't know i think this one kind of fell flat blackman you know gives them an arm submission or something in about six minutes and

17:38.51
Aaron
Yeah.

17:45.97
Aaron
Yeah, was

17:52.79
Aaron
Yeah.

17:56.15
Aaron
Yeah, the the there was like one time where I think the crowd used the air horn and and chanted for black men, but I don't know. Yeah, this had very little crowd participation. It was pretty quick.

18:07.59
Aaron
Steve Blackman, from what I remember, was never really utilized properly. He was kind of just like, once Ken Shamrock left, they were like, we need a new MMA guy.

18:16.93
Bradley Palermo
That's what it seemed like.

18:17.24
Aaron
Let's get Steve Blackman, you know?

18:18.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

18:19.31
Aaron
So yeah, black you were right. Blackman wins with an arm bar on draws who taps out.

18:24.47
Bradley Palermo
And then we got to Cain versus Midian. Am I saying his name right?

18:28.18
Aaron
Yes, Midian, yeah.

18:28.08
Bradley Palermo
Midian? Yeah. Midian was bigger than Cain. Like, I don't know.

18:32.23
Aaron
Wider, certainly.

18:33.46
Bradley Palermo
Well, softer, but he was like, he was, I mean, he was a big dude. Yeah, I was like, I don't know. For some reason, it seems like no one's bigger than Kane, but.

18:40.85
Aaron
Yeah, he's he's a big guy. So I think just about a year earlier, he was part of a tag team called the Godwins and he was Phineas Godwin.

18:50.91
Aaron
And I don't remember what his brother. He had a and another tag team partner who was another Godwin and they were just like hillbillies, like dirty, giant hillbillies.

18:59.09
Bradley Palermo
Oh.

19:00.29
Aaron
So clearly this is a much better use of him.

19:03.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and he's just some, like, ogre, long-haired tattoo. Like, I mean, he does look like last guy you'd want to get into a fight with, for sure.

19:10.08
Aaron
Yeah.

19:11.46
Bradley Palermo
But the crowd was super into Kane.

19:11.65
Aaron
Yeah.

19:13.61
Bradley Palermo
Kane was super over in the UK in this year, and...

19:15.51
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, this initial iteration of Kane to me is all, it will always be the best version of Kane. Obviously now he's a crazy vocal pro Trump politician. So, you know, forget that.

19:26.64
Aaron
But when he was a wrestling character, this was where he was at his best.

19:28.95
Bradley Palermo
Right.

19:30.95
Aaron
And, and what were say?

19:30.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, his mask looks awesome. Oh, said his mask looks so awesome.

19:47.68
Aaron
I don't really remember much of it, but I just remember that it happened.

19:52.74
Aaron
Yeah. And, you know, despite Kane being impressive, this was kind of another dud match for me, and it ended in a... DQ where all the corporate ministry comes out and ah attacks Kane.

20:04.09
Aaron
Then X-Pac comes out and saves Kane. this This is just kind of... For run-ins, this was a little ridiculous. So one small dude with a kendo stick comes into a ring and six people in the ring just scatter.

20:10.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

20:17.22
Aaron
That's a little unrealistic.

20:17.47
Bradley Palermo
yeah

20:18.26
Aaron
for Even for me, I'm like, oh, really? This six-foot guy is going to scare off five six-foot-five guys? Okay.

20:26.74
Bradley Palermo
I was thinking the same thing. I know in wrestling, there's kind of like a traditional rule that heels are supposed to scatter when a babyface comes for a save.

20:34.61
Aaron
Of course.

20:34.74
Bradley Palermo
And I've heard they even say, like, if you don't scatter, like, whatever he does to you, like, shoot-wise is is completely okay.

20:41.02
Aaron
That's on you. Yeah.

20:42.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's on you.

20:42.88
Aaron
Yeah.

20:42.86
Bradley Palermo
Like, he can fuck you up.

20:43.23
Aaron
Yeah.

20:43.86
Bradley Palermo
But, like, I mean, it's still hard to believe when one one smaller guy does it. But, i you know, also wanted to ask um... ah Sean Waltman or X-Pac or whatever, 123 Kid, whatever you want to call him, he's wearing a Degeneration X shirt, but no one else is Degeneration X in this entire show.

20:56.72
Aaron
yeah

21:00.63
Aaron
Right, so...

21:01.79
Bradley Palermo
And members of Degeneration X are fighting against him in our corporate ministry. So is this pre-Degeneration X or post or...

21:09.16
Aaron
No, so this, I actually looked this up um when I was watching last night because I was also confused. So DX had already been a thing twice by this point.

21:20.19
Bradley Palermo
Oh, okay.

21:20.98
Aaron
So the first instance was when Sean, it was just Sean and and Hunter... And China. And that went until I think like WrestleMania in 1998, 1998, the year prior to this pay-per-view where Michaels lost to Austin and then Michaels left because he, he had screwed up his back.

21:41.17
Aaron
And then, so the storyline way to get him out of there was, I think Triple H kicked him out. And so they were supposed to be heels for a while, but then, He recruited a Road Dogg and Billy Gunn and X-Pac, and then they became more of like a comedic heel group.

21:57.46
Aaron
And so they were they were a thing.

21:57.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

21:59.75
Aaron
Up until right before the corporate ministry thing happened. So that's why he's still wearing the DX stuff is like, it's a fresh wound, you know, like China and Hunter were gone.

22:02.78
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

22:08.57
Bradley Palermo
Right.

22:10.96
Aaron
and I think, I think ah Billy Gunn had hurt road dogs somehow.

22:11.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

22:15.79
Aaron
I don't know. So they were all kind of like split up and I don't think they get back together again until maybe like 2004 or five when it's just Sean and Triple H again.

22:24.00
Bradley Palermo
weird okay yeah because in my brain the whole all the stuff you just explained happened a little bit later than it actually did i was thinking that was more like 2000 ish but don't

22:30.36
Aaron
Yeah, I thought so too. I thought they were a thing through 99 and 2000, but I guess they weren't. It was just all like 97 to 99. It was like two years max, which is kind of crazy to think about that DX was so influential after two years, less than two years.

22:42.58
Bradley Palermo
know

22:47.71
Bradley Palermo
And hey, what'd you think of this stretch? Leave us a voicemail at 626-657-SLAM DM us on Instagram at grapplecitypod. We might read or play your take on the show.

22:58.20
Aaron
I did.

23:00.12
Aaron
Sorry. I did. i was reminded of something that we should that we should maybe talk about for a minute or two, which is that Sabu unfortunately passed away a day or two ago.

23:10.86
Aaron
And we had just watched him on that ECW pay-per-view, Barely Legal. um you know, there were a lot of really nice things said about him on social media. There were a lot of great memories shared, a lot of great moments in the ring.

23:26.06
Aaron
Just thought it was worth calling him out. He was a true innovator and, There are so many things that happen nowadays in matches that are because of him.

23:35.89
Aaron
throwing chairs at people's faces. That was him.

23:38.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

23:39.32
Aaron
John doing springboards off the top rope where you're like kind of hanging out for a while before you do anything. That was him.

23:46.10
Bradley Palermo
yeah

23:46.78
Aaron
Getting tables. That was Sabu. Not a lot of people know that, but Sabu was the guy that popularized putting people through tables.

23:49.22
Bradley Palermo
yeah

23:53.27
Aaron
So, you know, we we lost a good one, but his memory and his work will always live on. So RIP Sabu.

24:00.33
Bradley Palermo
I can't believe he did his final match, his his scheduled final match with Joey Janela and then passed away like all in the same few weeks, you know?

24:09.01
Aaron
Yeah.

24:09.23
Aaron
Yeah.

24:10.35
Aaron
It's a crazy, crazy turn of events. You know, they on Busted Open today, they had a whole episode, you know, talking about him and they had people call in and stuff. And ah Bill Alfonso called in because they're still friends. They were still friends.

24:23.46
Aaron
And he was like, yeah, he you know, he was really excited about the match. He really wanted it. know, after it was over, he thought it could have been better, but he was really happy that he did it. And so it seemed like, you know,

24:34.22
Aaron
He wanted it. i don't know if he knew that his time was up and he wanted to give it one last hurrah, but, uh,

24:39.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I don't know what what he knew or what it was. I mean, that match was, i know we talked about it around WrestleMania time, but it was nuts. I mean, I don't know.

24:48.64
Bradley Palermo
It was crazier than the ECW match that we saw last week. Like, his final match, like, just the amount of barbed wire stuff he was thrown into and the amount of, like, wounds to his head.

24:53.01
Aaron
yeah.

24:58.02
Bradley Palermo
I was like... you know i wonder after at first i was wondering if it contributed to you know a health a health decline but there's no way to know there was nothing released but know so bummer but uh yeah still i'm sure we'll see a lot more from him as we go back through history and watch all this crazy shit

24:59.49
Aaron
He was a... Yeah.

25:23.61
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

25:26.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

25:27.34
Aaron
Like we, we need to watch, it's, you know, it's sacrilege for some people, but we need to watch ECW one night stand, the one that they did with WWE. Cause that, It's like only 20 years old, so it's not that old, but there's a lot of, you want to talk about crazy fans and the the craziest atmosphere.

25:42.96
Bradley Palermo
yeah

25:44.02
Aaron
You've never seen that, have you?

25:45.27
Bradley Palermo
I have not, so I'm down, I'm down to watch that.

25:47.58
Aaron
Yeah.

25:48.11
Bradley Palermo
All right, so let's continue on. We had what was supposed to be, was was was supposed to be Sable versus Tori, right?

25:53.82
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Yes, Sable versus Torrey.

25:55.74
Bradley Palermo
But Sable does the old heel thing where like, I'm not healthy, so I've got someone else to fight for me.

26:01.63
Aaron
I'm sick.

26:03.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, was that old thing.

26:05.23
Aaron
That's literally what she did.

26:06.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so when Nicole Bass comes out. She is this beast of a woman. I mean, she's fucking huge. Bodybuilder looking like big square head.

26:13.56
Aaron
you look her up at all?

26:15.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, she is.

26:17.01
Aaron
Did you look her up? Did you see like, like she, she had a very strange and crazy journey, like just as a professional.

26:23.06
Bradley Palermo
I, I, we can talk about it, but I.

26:26.53
Aaron
We don't need to. I just thought it was interesting. You know, she like, she had a crazy, uh, she was not in wrestling for very long.

26:28.73
Bradley Palermo
No, no.

26:33.03
Aaron
she, I think she started out like obviously being a bodybuilder. And, think she got on a Howard Stern one time and like kept coming on a Howard Stern and then got into WWF for a little while.

26:44.16
Aaron
But she like, you know, she's had problems with, uh, problems, domestic violence, drug problem. You know, she's,

26:50.63
Bradley Palermo
She was a wow sexually assaulted backstage by the Brooklyn Brawler, it says on on on Wikipedia.

26:53.73
Aaron
Yeah.

26:55.97
Aaron
yeah

26:58.39
Bradley Palermo
You know, one weird for me is her real name is Nicole Fuchs. And I was born Bradley Fuchs. I changed my name for you know, for various reasons. In music, had ah I was using a different name and then people came to know me by it, so I just made it legal.

27:12.16
Bradley Palermo
Who cares, really? But I was like, man, am I related to this this this woman? Because she looks like some of my family members that are fuchs. It's not like the most common last name. um Yeah, but she's she's scary. Maybe she's my cousin, you know? Who knows?

27:26.58
Aaron
Yeah, she had a very short stint in the WWF, wrestled on the independence for a few years, but you know didn't didn't have much of a ah a career and in wrestling and had had a crazy life, had a bunch of bad stuff happen to her, did a bunch of bad stuff to people.

27:41.47
Aaron
So you know this was her...

27:42.42
Bradley Palermo
And she died early at age 52. So so

27:45.32
Aaron
Yeah, and when did she pass away? 2017. unfortunate. yeah

27:48.13
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

27:48.72
Aaron
unfortunate

27:52.94
Aaron
She squashed Tori in seconds though.

27:55.03
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Oh yeah. It was a squash match.

27:57.99
Aaron
Yeah. She squashed Tori in seconds.

27:58.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

28:18.59
Bradley Palermo
And they brought back the European Championship, I guess, just for this show.

28:22.83
Bradley Palermo
It's not, and but they put it on Shane.

28:23.89
Aaron
Yeah.

28:24.75
Bradley Palermo
Like, was under the impression that like, it wasn't something he earned. It was just something that he like gave himself.

28:28.15
Aaron
yeah I'm pretty sure there was some video package at some point during this pay-per-view where they explained that, that he like gave it to himself.

28:29.97
Bradley Palermo
It's very.

28:36.89
Aaron
And I think X-Pac was maybe the last one before they got rid of it.

28:37.42
Bradley Palermo
Right.

28:41.38
Aaron
I don't know. I wasn't, they didn't go that far into it, but it was a, it was a pretty fast paced and exciting match. But then, you know, interference in tomfoolery with the corporate ministry, it just took a long time.

28:51.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, a lot of overbooking on these matches, like people saving other people and oh ch China and Triple H interfering.

28:54.57
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

28:58.53
Aaron
And then Shane gets the win.

29:00.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Shane Wynn.

29:01.10
Aaron
It's just, yeah, it just kind of became like a clusterfuck at the end. And then Shane wins.

29:04.90
Bradley Palermo
Xbox is out there again, right?

29:06.66
Aaron
Well, he's in the match. Yeah.

29:08.20
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

29:10.44
Bradley Palermo
Kane, oh, yeah.

29:24.64
Aaron
of like, this is the it's you know, it's more like an episode of Raw or Smackdown now where it's like, OK, this is the story that we're telling for the next two hours.

29:30.08
Bradley Palermo
Right.

29:33.07
Aaron
Like these people are are wrecking shit and they're in charge and they're wreaking havoc on everyone else.

29:33.08
Bradley Palermo
Right.

29:38.93
Aaron
I appreciated that despite what we've just said about how it's overbooked and kind of boring.

29:43.22
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you're seeing almost everyone that works on the show every like minutes. They're all kind of up to the point where I got confused who's even in this particular match.

29:47.55
Aaron
Yeah, which which is kind of cool.

29:52.82
Aaron
i That's fair. That's fair. And then, you know, the match is over and then we get Mick Foley, Mankind in a backstage interview who's about to have a match and then he gets attacked by the ministry. He's just coming back from, you know, from interfering in the previous match. They beat the crap out of him.

30:09.29
Aaron
And then out comes Billy Gunn, who is known as Mr. Ass at this point in his career, which made me laugh because I think about Dan Howzen calling Billy Gunn's kids the Ass Boys.

30:20.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and AEW kind of became daddy ass because he had the ass poise.

30:23.20
Aaron
Yep. Yeah.

30:24.62
Bradley Palermo
and um Yeah, I see sometimes with with like when the Attitude Era stuff's on and in the shop when I'm working, I'll look over and like Billy Gunn, he's got a thong under his shorts and he just like wiggles his ass out and then pull pulls the shorts back off. And I'm like, God, that guy just really went for it. It seems...

30:39.47
Bradley Palermo
I guess this match I was reading was supposed to be Gunn's big solo push. like That was the start of it.

30:44.95
Aaron
Hmm.

30:46.41
Bradley Palermo
But yeah.

30:47.32
Aaron
Another good match though. You know, we, we, mankind looked like maybe he wasn't going to come out because he had just been attacked, but then he does. um, yeah, it starts on the outside. It's like, you know, like a street fight for the first few minutes. I, I wrote down that Mick took a crazy bump in the first three minutes. I think he like threw himself over the railing and just landed on the, the concrete. Like it was nothing.

31:10.50
Aaron
But this was like, I mean, Mick Foley is the best, right? He's so intense, but he had such a disregard for his own personal safety.

31:14.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

31:18.44
Aaron
I think that's, you know, those two things is is what made him so popular. And yeah you can see it. he's He's just letting his body get abused.

31:28.11
Bradley Palermo
I guess by mid he was um getting into that whole like rock and sock comedy role.

31:34.89
Aaron
Yeah, the three faces of Foley.

31:34.98
Bradley Palermo
So he was, this is, yeah, so this is sort of like the end of his like insane death match stuff and kind of heading into the more like, Hey, I'm not gonna, I don't, I can't have the ability to kill myself anymore than I already have. So we're going to be funny.

31:49.49
Aaron
I mean, he still does a bunch of crazy matches.

31:51.52
Aaron
He just does them less frequently. But yeah, he already he already had Mr.

31:53.94
Bradley Palermo
right

31:55.37
Aaron
Socko at this point, his his disgusting, stinky sock that he would put over his hand before his finishing maneuver, the mandible claw.

32:03.33
Bradley Palermo
right so put that sock in someone's mouth is gnarly yeah he's yeah he's got such a good weird sense of humor and um appreciate it yeah he i mean

32:06.58
Aaron
Yeah.

32:12.46
Aaron
Yeah, mix the man.

32:15.04
Aaron
i thought

32:18.07
Bradley Palermo
you know he's kind of the... I mean, you have like The Undertaker and Triple H and Stone Cold, but Mick Foley is kind of, I don't know, the unsung hero of it of it all.

32:25.66
Aaron
The everyman. Yeah.

32:27.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

32:28.24
Aaron
Oh no. I think he, I mean, he was unsung at the time, but I think people recognize it now. he was, he was really, he was really important.

32:32.84
Bradley Palermo
Now, yeah.

32:35.45
Bradley Palermo
And I feel like the crowd there that night knew it too. I mean, people really seemed to love him.

32:39.20
Aaron
Yeah, yeah. I mean, he, you wanted to root for him. He, he, Sammy Zane does stuff that I feel like reminds me of Mick Foley with like the struggle and, you know, being sort of having this sort of every man quality that I don't really know how to describe other than to call it that.

32:50.29
Bradley Palermo
Right.

32:57.04
Aaron
Mm hmm.

32:58.03
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

32:59.34
Aaron
Yeah, you're just you just want to root for them. And obviously when he's just mankind and he's like a crazy person, you don't really want to root for him. But from, I think, the the Hell in a Cell match with Undertaker onwards, it was really hard not to root for Mick Foley.

33:12.89
Bradley Palermo
Yes. This ah had a botched ending. That was kind of funny.

33:17.44
Aaron
It was funny and also bad at the same time.

33:17.75
Bradley Palermo
Botched finished.

33:20.83
Aaron
Like even, even forgetting about the botch, it was a stupid finish. So Mick Foley, Mankind, went to go grab a chair out from outside the ring. He brought it into the ring and referee Teddy Long pulled it away from him.

33:33.82
Aaron
It lands on the on the mat. The ref doesn't do anything to move it out of the way. He just leaves it there. ah Billy Gunn reverses the mandible claw and slams Mankind's head into the chair that was just sitting in the ring.

33:50.13
Aaron
And then, yeah, then the botch happens where I think he kicked out, right? It wasn't a three count and they rang the bell.

33:54.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Ref only counted till two. He kicked out. There was no, no one in the ring thought it was three. No one in the audience thought it was three, but the guy ringing the bell, he thought it was.

34:03.09
Aaron
He thought it was three.

34:05.54
Bradley Palermo
And then i think just like we watched in ecw last week, that happened as well.

34:05.74
Aaron
And then.

34:09.74
Bradley Palermo
And it seems like it's a, it's kind of protocol. Like once that happens, they're like, fuck it. Just pin me again. Well, yeah.

34:14.88
Aaron
Yeah.

34:14.99
Bradley Palermo
get the fuck out of this, right? Because if you continue on, like, we're, you know, so, they just kind of, they just just kind of redid the pin and daddy asked one.

34:16.71
Aaron
yeah

34:23.05
Aaron
Yeah, he, uh, he hit him with, he hit mankind with his finish, the famous, on the chair again. And then, yeah, one, two, three, uh, Billy gun wins.

34:32.13
Bradley Palermo
And then I think, was there, was there more interference and bullshit at the end of this one?

34:35.94
Bradley Palermo
No.

34:36.44
Aaron
No, this was actually a clean finish.

34:37.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

34:39.20
Aaron
one of the longer matches of the night, if I remember correctly.

34:38.65
Bradley Palermo
oh

34:43.24
Aaron
And like, again, a pretty good match. Mick's always impressive and Billy Gunn is huge dude and he's really good at what he does. So yeah, I enjoyed this match.

34:52.73
Bradley Palermo
me get into big three in one ring at time.

34:56.79
Aaron
Yes, the main event.

35:07.53
Bradley Palermo
And it's Interesting because Undertaker and Triple H are both in this like carny group with Shane McMahon and yeah, it's the corporate ministry and Stone Cold is, yeah, it's not really a trip three-way for the start of this match.

35:22.07
Bradley Palermo
It's just, it's just the Undertaker and Triple H beating the shit out

35:22.66
Aaron
Yeah, it's a two-on-one.

35:26.08
Bradley Palermo
I thought it was interesting.

35:26.33
Aaron
the can Can we talk about the entrances for a sec? Because I liked...

35:28.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, let's that.

35:30.94
Aaron
First of all, I liked the Undertaker entrance because it was different again. And I just think it's really fun to see...

35:34.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

35:36.95
Aaron
the different incarnations and iterations of the undertaker. So here everything feels a bit more evil. There's like some electric guitar that's usually not there. And there's like a really sort of, you know, oppressive vibe to it.

35:45.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

35:49.07
Aaron
And then I wrote here, yeah, Paul, Paul bearer looking semi normal looking was pretty funny, but then the triple H.

35:53.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. His head's like twice the size of what it was in like 94. And just,

35:58.36
Aaron
Right. Yeah. I think maybe we just never saw that profile of him or I don't know.

35:59.19
Bradley Palermo
and yeah Yeah.

36:02.81
Aaron
But then the Triple H entrance was interesting too because it was not Motorhead. It was not the game, which came a little bit later.

36:08.62
Bradley Palermo
Right.

36:10.09
Aaron
This was, you know, his in between his Hunter Hearst Helmsley music and the game was this, which is I think the same people who did

36:16.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.

36:18.82
Aaron
the D generation X, uh, theme. They did this one for him.

36:21.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

36:22.64
Aaron
And this was kind of fun too. was like a throwback for me. Cause I, again, I was watching during this time. So I was like, Oh yeah, ah ah I remember this music and just him walking out with China. He didn't do the, the water spitting thing.

36:33.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

36:33.95
Aaron
It was kind of, it was kind of interesting.

36:35.67
Bradley Palermo
Chyna looks great too. She's like, yeah, I kind of feel like she's, you know, was born years to too early because and if she would, you know, just seeing her in there with like Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair, like I wish I could see her, you know, in her prime against against women of that caliber.

36:37.74
Aaron
Always.

36:43.41
Aaron
Yeah.

36:50.57
Aaron
Yeah.

36:53.82
Aaron
Yeah.

36:54.09
Bradley Palermo
you know, strength and size. You know, she just had to be mostly either fight the dudes or interfere a whole bunch. You know, like, fuck, you know, kind of wasted talent a little bit.

37:02.72
Aaron
yeah

37:05.30
Aaron
I mean, for the time she got certainly got to do a lot of things that women hadn't done. She broke a ton of barriers. I think she was the first female to win the Intercontinental Championship, if I'm not mistaken.

37:15.99
Aaron
Maybe the only one.

37:16.26
Bradley Palermo
Oh shit, yeah.

37:17.86
Aaron
and I don't know if.

37:17.91
Bradley Palermo
I think she was she was the first woman in the Royal Rumble when there was no women's Royal Rumble.

37:18.34
Aaron
and

37:21.34
Aaron
Yep. Yep. Yeah. I mean, yeah, China's a trailblazer, no doubt about it.

37:23.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

37:25.63
Aaron
and Here, she's just, yeah, she's a she's a menacing lackey. But, you know, this this was another pretty good match.

37:30.66
Bradley Palermo
Right.

37:33.70
Aaron
I mean, it's long, and it's they do a bunch of dumb street fight type shit. um But it became more fun once Triple H and Undertaker finally got mad at each other, and they were like, wait, you're gonna you want the championship?

37:45.53
Aaron
No, I want the championship. And then then it became a true triple threat.

37:46.93
Bradley Palermo
yeah

38:02.61
Bradley Palermo
from

38:01.91
Aaron
Oh, yeah, it was Earl. Yeah, Earl Earl Hebner took a chair from Triple H or something. Yeah, that was weird. was that about?

38:08.09
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was weird. I think Steve Austin got the chair eventually.

38:11.52
Aaron
Right.

38:11.98
Bradley Palermo
Steve was going to be hit with it, but then the ref took the chair from whoever was going to smack him. And then I was like, you can't, dude, you can't take chairs away from people in the middle of a no holds barred match.

38:22.55
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, it was a little, uh, a little, uh, what's the word?

38:22.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah,

38:26.86
Aaron
Maybe Maybe she was showing his hand. He's a little biased there.

38:30.13
Bradley Palermo
yeah egregious.

38:31.83
Aaron
ah

38:34.50
Aaron
Oh, man. Yeah. You know, this is the longest match of the card as well. It should be. It was the main event. It was for the championship. ah But because of the fact that this is a glorified house show, as I said before,

38:45.86
Aaron
stone Cold wins it remains the champion, which is kind of ridiculous considering like what happens leading up to him winning.

38:54.48
Bradley Palermo
yeah

38:55.90
Aaron
Like there's so many people, so much interference.

38:58.71
Bradley Palermo
I mean, everyone from the entire night ends up in that ring at some point.

38:58.84
Aaron
And yet somehow he wins.

39:02.28
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

39:02.81
Bradley Palermo
And then then somehow by the end, they're all cleared from the ring. um But lots of stunners. Lots of you know the classic like Austin send-off with beers flying through the air into the ring.

39:14.50
Aaron
Mm hmm.

39:15.53
Bradley Palermo
He catches them and slams them and spits

39:17.43
Aaron
Gives triple h one pretends like he's friends, stunners him.

39:18.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.

39:22.17
Bradley Palermo
Yes. Yeah.

39:23.32
Aaron
And that was it.

39:24.08
Bradley Palermo
yeah

39:24.73
Aaron
And that was it. A lot of silliness at the end.

39:27.65
Bradley Palermo
Let's get into the grapple grade where we rate it fast forward play or rewind, break it down into three speeds. Fast forward is like, can't stand it, skip it Don't even put the tape in the deck plays like, it's fine.

39:48.81
Bradley Palermo
Fast forward player.

39:49.05
Aaron
As a whole, ah very mid-show for me.

39:51.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

39:52.26
Aaron
Although I do like the continuous thread of the corporate ministry, it felt more like an episode of Raw meets a house show, so fast forward this shit.

40:01.33
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I didn't mention earlier, but like, I mean, I did in the intro, but the entire time these yeah this UK crowd has like the air horns.

40:08.63
Aaron
do.

40:09.15
Bradley Palermo
ah And they're like, whistle there's just guys with whistles in the crowd the entire time.

40:13.20
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

40:14.85
Bradley Palermo
don't really draw.

40:18.31
Aaron
Yeah.

40:18.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. Ole and all that stuff.

40:21.56
Aaron
Yeah.

40:21.73
Bradley Palermo
They didn't draw a lot of attention to being in the UK, but it was very, but yeah, it was a very European type crowd, which was really annoying to my ears.

40:30.22
Bradley Palermo
I don't know, it just whistles and horns and

40:31.80
Aaron
Well, the air horns were annoying. me i've i said I enjoyed them. You know, I think they happened a little too often, but it was very much like a 90s thing. I remember when people were like, well I'm going to bring an air horn in this arena.

40:42.86
Aaron
It's going to be awesome.

40:42.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I would just get those air horn guys out. But yeah, I'm glad that I saw.

40:47.45
Aaron
what can i just want to say one more thing. So the the real reason why I'm giving this a fast forward There's nothing on this pay-per-view that you can't see elsewhere and better.

40:57.15
Aaron
That's really what it comes down to. like Everybody that you see on this pay-per-view, they do tons of better stuff than this. So for that reason, you can skip this and and there will be stuff that we cover that will have all these people that will be worth your time.

41:03.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

41:09.39
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yeah, I'm glad that I've now dipped myself into you know this part of the Attitude Era and that I you know i have more of a reference point.

41:17.89
Bradley Palermo
It's It's cool to see some early UK stuff happen big stars. But ah yeah, I'm going to go fast forward also.

41:26.29
Bradley Palermo
It was especially up until the main event, it was hard for... And I watched so much wrestling. It just it wasn't on par with but a lot of shit that I could just see any old day.

41:32.25
Aaron
Yeah.

41:33.74
Bradley Palermo
so um I think we ah we usually agree on these sorts of things on the rating.

41:37.46
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

41:41.36
Aaron
Got any any emails?

41:53.17
Aaron
What is happening?

41:59.19
Bradley Palermo
That was my a AOL modem dialing up to see if we have any emails.

42:03.24
Aaron
That was a very evil modem. Jeez. and It was ominous.

42:07.69
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i let's see. We have,

42:10.19
Aaron
Thank

42:12.14
Bradley Palermo
DMs.

42:13.00
Bradley Palermo
If you want to hear yourself on the show, you can always call 626-657-SLAM. Drop us a DM at grapplecitypod on Instagram. love the feedbacks, love the old stories, love when you point out the stuff we forgot.

42:42.19
Bradley Palermo
It's what indie fans were raving about for years after Barely Legal first um Yeah, I, you know... I respect Josh's insight to this and it's it's cool that he listens because he's actually someone who ah who works in the business unlike us and is you know involved with various fights and stuff like that.

42:55.37
Aaron
Oh, nice.

43:01.58
Bradley Palermo
He's a ring announcer.

43:01.76
Aaron
Promotions. Oh, OK, cool.

43:03.71
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, dude, i I don't know. It's just maybe it's...

43:06.81
Aaron
You didn't like that match. I mean, we've seen so much of that style now. That style has been normalized so much to the point of like exhaustion. you know So I can totally understand what Josh is saying.

43:18.56
Aaron
of like In 1997, you didn't see six amazing Japanese wrestlers on American television for 15 minutes, like ever.

43:28.06
Aaron
So I get it.

43:27.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I'm sure I overlooked it and it's, you know, I, I'm sure I didn't give it a time. I mean, there's like six people in the in the ring again. I don't know who any of them are.

43:37.56
Bradley Palermo
I liked the one-on-one, a couple of the guys in that match we'd seen do. a, I'm just a person who really likes a one-on-one match and I want it.

43:44.50
Aaron
singles matches.

43:45.81
Bradley Palermo
And it's hard for me to follow a story when there's a whole bunch of them, but, um,

43:48.94
Aaron
I get that.

43:49.12
Bradley Palermo
But if i if I ever end up with with ECW barely legal on my screen again, that's the match I'll give it another chance.

43:55.47
Aaron
I remember it was very athletic.

43:57.57
Aaron
Like they were doing really and athletically impressive stuff, but in juxtaposition to like but the crazy violent, you know, carny stuff that was happening before and after. I think it maybe got lost in the shuffle for me.

44:09.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. endless dude And i love wrestling, but i also get crabby sometimes when I watch too much wrestling in a week. I'm just like, how many goddamn matches? Can I skip one? you know And I think I basically did just skip over that one when we talked about it, but...

44:24.45
Bradley Palermo
let's see we got some emails here karen from st louis says she's been getting into wrestling again thanks to the show listen to your episode on canadian stampede forgot wrestling can make me feel like that you guys really make it fun to learn about these old shows thanks for what you do thanks karen from st louis i'm st louis too i don't think we know each other maybe we do

44:23.86
Aaron
yeah

44:36.16
Aaron
Nice.

44:38.84
Aaron
Yeah, thank you.

45:03.46
Bradley Palermo
Glad you like what we do. um You know, you guys, you guys can always, I know I always say the phone number, but I really appreciate you like contacting us however you may. and and And know people don't like to use phones anymore, but it's so fun when I actually get like the audio of you guys talking. So if you do ever call that number, it's just a voicemail. Like, it's not like I'm going to pick up and, you know, talk your ear off or anything. You can just you drop that.

45:24.73
Bradley Palermo
Instead of an email, you can just drop it right into your phone and then I can drop it right into the show and then we can sort of like get more personality from you. I'm just like, please call, please call the line 626-657-SLAM.

45:35.22
Bradley Palermo
slam

45:36.96
Aaron
Pick up the phone.

45:39.18
Bradley Palermo
so So for the next episode, we are getting into, um i just decided this, but ah you can let me know how you feel about it, Aaron. WWF Over the Edge 98, which was May 31st, in Milwaukee. but It's got like Stone Cold versus Dude Love with Vince as the referee, Patterson as a timekeeper, Briscoe as the bell ringer.

46:09.71
Bradley Palermo
And, you know, it's a key moment in the Austin McMahon feud.

46:10.01
Aaron
Nice.

46:16.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

46:18.13
Aaron
Oh yeah, this is when he betrayed Farouk in the Nation of Domination. I remember this.

46:23.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and then the DX versus the Nation Feud is heating up. So that sounded interesting to me.

46:27.46
Aaron
This sounds good.

46:29.14
Bradley Palermo
I just, you know, I do want to get into oddball stuff and weird shit. And, like, even the ones that we say, oh, fuck it, they're fast forward. Like, it's interesting for me as far as just learning about the history of all this stuff.

46:39.26
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

46:54.91
Bradley Palermo
And if you guys want to listen, or I mean, uh, watch it before the next show, you'll know what we're talking about. And, uh, Don't forget before we go to follow us on your podcast app so you don't miss the next episode when it comes out in a couple weeks.

47:08.38
Bradley Palermo
Or if you're ever wondering where we've been and if there's anything new, you can, you're an Echo device user, you can just say, Alexa, play Grapple City Rewind podcast. And don't forget to use the word podcast at the end.

47:19.17
Bradley Palermo
That's all I have for today. about you, Aaron?

47:22.57
Aaron
Yeah, I don't have anything else. This was was my pick. It was a mid-pay-per-view, but hopefully Over the Edge is very good. It seems like it will be based on the card. So yeah, looking forward to watching it.

47:36.12
Bradley Palermo
right. Well, thanks, man. I had a lot of fun. And thanks, everyone, for listening. We will be back with you as soon as we can.

47:43.21
Aaron
Bye, Holt.