Grapple City Rewind
Step into the time machine and rewind the glory (and the weirdness) of pro wrestling’s VHS era. Hosted by Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink, Grapple City Rewind dives deep into classic pay-per-views from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s—unpacking everything from five-star classics to glitter botches, fake Diesels, and forgotten squash matches.
Each episode blends play-by-play recaps, backstage trivia, and plenty of sarcastic banter. Sometimes it’s reverence, sometimes it’s ridicule, but it’s always passionate. Whether we’re debating star ratings, laughing at signs, or reliving Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind, we’re here to remind you why you fell in love with wrestling in the first place.
We kick off every show with a look at today’s wrestling headlines, then rewind to the pay-per-views that shaped us as fans. Think of it as a tape-trading party with your loudest friends, only with better audio.
Want to cut a promo on us? Call 626-657-SLAM and tell us what you loved, hated, or want us to cover next.
Grapple City Rewind – part history lesson, part comedy roast, all love for the squared circle.
Grapple City Rewind
Peak Wrestling - WCW Halloween Havoc 1991
Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink plug into one of WCW’s wildest disasters — the 1991 Halloween Havoc: Chamber of Horrors. 2600 pounds of men, ghouls with gurneys, and an honest-to-God electric chair in the middle of the ring. Hear the boys relive Dusty Rhodes’ spooky fever dream and Abdullah the Butcher somehow surviving execution to keep fighting. Plus, Crown Jewel predictions, TNA crossover talk, and more wrestling weirdness from the golden age of gimmicks.
Live in Los Angeles: Bradley Palermo's 4th annual Holiday Hoedown featuring Palermo doing a set of holiday originals alongside Hans Maestro and Sim Williams. Super limited seating, claim your ticket now
This episode brought to you by Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/
Email: Grapplecitypod@gmail.com
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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.
Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.
00:01:11.36
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the iconic pay-per-views and television specials that shaped pro wrestling history.
00:01:25.78
Bradley Palermo
That little clip at the beginning was Abdullah the Butcher from the YouTube page going ringside back in 2023. We played it because this week we're rewinding to October 27th, 1991, when WCW rolled into Chattanooga, Tennessee for Halloween Havoc Chamber of Horrors.
00:01:46.24
Bradley Palermo
It was a night of spooky stage sets and probably some overbooked finishes by Dusty and one of the most infamous gimmick matches in wrestling history, complete with coffins, referees, helmet cams, and of course, ghouls, ghosts, and an electric chair in the middle of the ring at one point.
00:02:03.06
Aaron
Ghouls.
00:02:09.65
Bradley Palermo
but it wasn't all tricks there were some treats on the card dustin rhodes steve austin brian pillman in there ah well i'll tell you all about that later um grab your candy dim the lights get ready to visit wcw's version of a haunted house Because this rewind will be Halloween Havoc 91.
00:02:32.50
Bradley Palermo
But before we get into the rewind, as always, I'm Bradley Palermo here with Aaron Fink. And Aaron, what are we going to talk about on the current product today?
00:02:42.58
Bradley Palermo
looks like we've got a little WWE WWE Perth action happening this weekend. What's it called even?
00:02:49.48
Aaron
Yeah, we do.
00:02:49.66
Bradley Palermo
Crown Jewel.
00:02:50.36
Aaron
It's Crown Jewel Perth. Yeah. um There's only four matches announced, but I figured we could we could talk about them real quick, see how we're feeling, take our temperatures on them.
00:03:01.72
Aaron
um
00:03:01.70
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:03:03.00
Aaron
First one listed Cody Rhodes versus Seth Rollins for the Crown Jewel Championship. It's champion versus champion. I think... I mean, it'll be a good match. i They're trying to make me care.
00:03:14.76
Aaron
i don't really care um because they're just kind of throwing it together. And, you know, Cody doesn't really have a feud right now. Seth's feuding with everyone right now. So feels a little tacked on, but I understand it's part of their shtick now.
00:03:27.48
Aaron
Like we're doing champ, the best of the best at crown jewel every year. So, um you know.
00:03:31.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it kind of ah kind of degrades you one of your world championships to have that champion beat, I guess.
00:03:40.16
Aaron
Yeah.
00:03:40.69
Bradley Palermo
um I think what...
00:03:40.97
Aaron
And, you know, I kind of feel like Cody has to lose because Seth's beaten it.
00:03:41.77
Bradley Palermo
like
00:03:44.91
Aaron
Seth has lost to Cody three times in a row. They've wrestled each other three times in the last three years and he's lost every one. So probably a shenanigan finish.
00:03:51.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, well, I was going to say, you just bring out all the fools that he rolls with, the vision, and then, you know, Cody has an out.
00:03:56.11
Aaron
hmm.
00:03:59.66
Bradley Palermo
I guess I agree with you that Cody has to lose. Cody's reign is it's kind of getting boring, tiresome. I guess he needs a good feud.
00:04:06.79
Aaron
Well, it's like his second reign, right? you know like he he But even even then, yeah, if you if you look at it as one whole thing, it's... It's just okay. Like there, there really wasn't anything spectacular.
00:04:14.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:16.84
Aaron
um I blame the rock, but you know, whatever.
00:04:20.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:04:21.20
Aaron
a Second match on the card, Stephanie Vakera versus Tiffany Stratton, another champion versus champion match.
00:04:21.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:04:27.13
Aaron
Again, i don't, I love Stephanie Vakera. I am indifferent about Tiffany Stratton. I feel like her championship run has also been kind of a lackluster and,
00:04:38.10
Bradley Palermo
I forgot she was a champion. Yeah.
00:04:39.94
Aaron
Yeah, they just haven't really done much with her. They haven't put her in any really solid feuds. I don't know why. i mean, they had she had that match with Charlotte Flair, which was was pretty good at WrestleMania, but she's kind of been.
00:04:53.48
Aaron
Gone since then, i haven't really.
00:04:55.26
Bradley Palermo
Wasn't she a part of that three-way huge botch on SmackDown?
00:04:55.47
Aaron
i
00:04:59.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:04:59.94
Aaron
She was, yeah, with Nia Jax and Jade Cargill.
00:05:01.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah,
00:05:04.56
Aaron
Yeah, that was an unfortunate situation.
00:05:04.86
Bradley Palermo
that was rough.
00:05:06.99
Aaron
um Naya seems to get herself in these situations often. i don't, you know, I don't want to talk shit about Naya, but.
00:05:12.16
Bradley Palermo
Who knows who's... I mean, hey, we're podcasters. We're here to talk shit. But i I don't know if it was Nia's fault or what was supposed to happen, but it was a weird little clusterfuck...
00:05:21.08
Aaron
No, I was just. It was just bad timing. Yeah. and i think every everyone was not on the same page and like, you know, there's just Naya is the one with the most experience in that situation.
00:05:24.53
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:05:33.68
Aaron
So there's not really anything she could have done. She's laying on the mat. She probably should have kicked out, but you know, whatever.
00:05:39.15
Bradley Palermo
Oh, okay. So if for anyone listening and didn't see it, there was a three-way match with Tiffany Stratton, Naya, and Jade Cargo. And there was some sort of pin situation where
00:05:52.77
Aaron
Jade was pinning Naya and then Tiffany kicked Jade off.
00:05:52.89
Bradley Palermo
Didn't even.
00:05:58.29
Aaron
Jade went out to the outside of the ring. Tiffany pinned Naya and the referee that it was not supposed to be the finish. So the referee didn't count to three and Naya did not get her shoulder up until like three seconds after the what would have been the three count.
00:06:10.63
Bradley Palermo
didn't even
00:06:15.20
Bradley Palermo
And made this production still like she like she kicked out with her shoulder up.
00:06:18.54
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:19.36
Bradley Palermo
But it was like way after. And the whole crowd is like, ooh.
00:06:22.89
Aaron
Ooh, no good.
00:06:23.18
Bradley Palermo
But but i someone said that, I mean, this is just people online, that when Jade was thrown off of Naya...
00:06:33.15
Bradley Palermo
that she was supposed to pull the ref by the feet to stop the count.
00:06:34.03
Aaron
She was supposed to come break the pin up. Oh, okay.
00:06:38.48
Bradley Palermo
And she never...
00:06:38.70
Aaron
Yeah.
00:06:45.95
Aaron
huh. Yeah, either that or she was supposed to interrupt the pin, i would assume.
00:06:47.24
Bradley Palermo
um and that
00:06:50.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. But if that's the case, Nia was supposed to lay there, i mean, Jade jade is...
00:06:54.42
Aaron
hmm.
00:06:55.43
Bradley Palermo
a There's a reason her name is Jade, you know, she's forever green. So...
00:07:01.38
Aaron
So, okay, third match that's that's listed for Crown Jewel is John Cena versus AJ Styles. ah I'm sure it's going to be a great match. There has been zero buildup for this match. It just happened online because the internet was like, face AJ Styles, John Cena. And Cena was like, oh, you want to do that? What do you think, Triple H? And Triple H is like, it's going to happen.
00:07:23.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:07:24.27
Aaron
So...
00:07:24.50
Bradley Palermo
Dude, I noticed when I was watching wrestling in the middle of the night, just kind of in and out, that why do all these old dudes talk the same?
00:07:34.05
Aaron
Do they? Who?
00:07:34.58
Bradley Palermo
Triple H, Vince McMahon, there's a few more. But when you look away, you're like, which which dude, for which older wrestler guy talks like, you know, they all kind of...
00:07:47.76
Aaron
Yeah, they've done a lot of screaming and shit, I guess.
00:07:47.91
Bradley Palermo
anyway I guess that's what it is. Yeah. so So do you think going to win on that John Cena, AJ Styles?
00:07:52.71
Aaron
Uh,
00:07:56.38
Aaron
Honestly, I don't know, because if it was anybody else but AJ Styles and they were like a younger wrestler, I would say the younger wrestler. But because it's AJ and he's going to retire in a year, I feel like Cena is probably going to win.
00:08:06.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:08:08.95
Bradley Palermo
I feel like Cena mostly has been just fighting legends on his way out, which is, you'd think it would be like a string of the new the next generation.
00:08:14.49
Aaron
Yeah.
00:08:18.28
Bradley Palermo
I mean, that's what he was doing for years, I guess, up until now.
00:08:21.26
Aaron
Yeah, well, he's still got to.
00:08:21.58
Bradley Palermo
But...
00:08:23.12
Aaron
So the reason why there's no buildup and they haven't made anything out of this is not only because I don't think they were planning it, but also Cena's only contracted for like four more appearances, including this one, or maybe five, including this one at Crown Jewel.
00:08:38.52
Aaron
So it just.
00:08:39.17
Bradley Palermo
So he's not going to come around and and feud and do all that. This is just kind of like dream that.
00:08:41.98
Aaron
Yeah, I mean. I wish he would, but he's not going to.
00:08:44.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:45.42
Aaron
um
00:08:45.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:08:46.27
Aaron
Fourth match listed is Rhea Ripley and Io Sky versus the Kabuki Warriors, Asuka and Kairi Sane. And, you know, they've at least tried to make a story out of this one. um They've been doing stuff on Raw the past few weeks with them. And so there's like a little bit there.
00:09:01.45
Aaron
I wish that Io was a little bit better with like, acting, it showing real emotion, because every time she like has to be sad or upset, she looks like she's trying really hard to do that.
00:09:14.19
Aaron
And I love Io.
00:09:14.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. For sure.
00:09:15.23
Aaron
I think she's amazing. But the acting could use a little bit of work. ah You know, I'm going to watch this this PLE because I watched them all.
00:09:19.83
Bradley Palermo
sure
00:09:22.37
Aaron
But ah so far, I'm kind of underwhelmed by this one.
00:09:26.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, Rhea in her home country, that's she's probably got a win, right? I mean, if I have to predict, I'm going go um John Cena needs a win after that Brock Lesnar thing.
00:09:31.53
Aaron
hmm. I think.
00:09:38.61
Bradley Palermo
I'll go with John Cena. I'll go with Rhea. I'll go with what were the other ones that I have in front of me right now?
00:09:46.00
Aaron
Cody and Seth, we said, Seth, we think, and then, yeah, Stephanie and Tiffany, I feel like Stephanie has got to win.
00:09:47.72
Bradley Palermo
i I'll agree with you on Seth, yeah.
00:09:52.70
Bradley Palermo
I feel like Stephanie needs a ah to keep her momentum. So Stephanie for sure.
00:09:55.85
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:57.81
Bradley Palermo
All right, cool. um Anything else going on in the in the current world of pro wrestling before we get into the rewind?
00:10:03.51
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, I've been enjoying NXT and specifically what they've been doing with TNA lately. I know that Tuesday of this coming week, there's going to be like a special NXT with a with some like an NXT versus TNA situation. I think that'll be fun. And then on the weekend, the same weekend as Crown Jewel, we get TNA is bound for glory. And there's actually a few matches there that um I'm kind of stoked about.
00:10:29.67
Aaron
Javon Evans from NXT, who's been Great lately, just super incredible, very talented, very high flying. He's going to face Leon Slater, who's another young, very talented, high flying guy.
00:10:41.92
Aaron
um Kalani Jordan from NXT is the TNA Knockouts champion, and she's going to face Indi Hartwell. I think that should be good also. And then the main event should be ah Trick Williams, who's the TNA champion, but obviously an NXT wrestler against Mike Santana.
00:10:58.32
Aaron
So those will all be good. I'm also curious, like morbidly curious about the Hardys versus Team 3D in a tables match because therere they're all old.
00:11:07.40
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
00:11:09.65
Aaron
but
00:11:10.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. We just watched those two.
00:11:11.11
Aaron
But maybe maybe it'll be fun to see them. Yeah, it's the right. We just saw them in Royal Rumble 2000 and they're going have the same match again. um
00:11:18.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:11:18.93
Aaron
We'll see. i don't know.
00:11:19.80
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah. This was TNA invasion, but they, they had to change the name because someone got offended.
00:11:25.62
Aaron
Oh, boy.
00:11:25.71
Bradley Palermo
That's pretty, that's pretty ridiculous.
00:11:29.12
Aaron
So yeah, there's a lot of good wrestling coming this this coming weekend. um I'm excited. I'll be watching wwe WWE and TNA and hopefully no crazy botches.
00:11:41.12
Aaron
Hopefully people get caught when they do high-flying shit.
00:11:41.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think I might tune into all that because it is kind of fun that they've combined the company so closely at this point. I think they're doing Survivor Series matches, right?
00:11:47.61
Aaron
Yeah.
00:11:49.26
Bradley Palermo
that
00:11:49.76
Aaron
Yeah, on NXT on Tuesday, it's basically like Survivor Series matches.
00:11:52.33
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:54.56
Aaron
So yeah, that'll be fun.
00:11:56.13
Bradley Palermo
Cool. Cool.
00:12:02.23
Bradley Palermo
So it was October 27th, 1991, as I mentioned, at the UTC Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Attendance of nearly 9,000. They announced 9,000.
00:12:13.18
Bradley Palermo
Commentary was Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone. Booker was Dusty Rhodes. And this was, of course, Halloween Havoc 1991. ninety one We've got 11 matches, four of which are title matches.
00:12:25.98
Bradley Palermo
We've got ah an opening presentation of like spooky thunder and music cartoons, haunted house silliness with like ghostly wrestler overlays.
00:12:38.64
Bradley Palermo
So Lex Luger would come out all translucent and white, and then his image would whisk off the screen, and then it would be you know another one of the Abdullah the Butcher or whoever.
00:12:39.00
Aaron
Oh my God. Yeah.
00:12:44.89
Aaron
Uh huh.
00:12:59.10
Bradley Palermo
primarily i he's you know He's known for like some some crazy gimmick matches, like the but he he created War Games. he created war games
00:13:05.97
Aaron
He created war games, yeah, which is which is a great concept.
00:13:08.00
Bradley Palermo
And um yeah, it is.
00:13:09.77
Aaron
the
00:13:10.49
Bradley Palermo
The Chamber of Horrors is not so much.
00:13:11.35
Aaron
The Chamber of Order is not so much. Mm-hmm.
00:13:14.05
Bradley Palermo
um So yeah, this is this is fun. I wanted something weird last week and in you know in celebration of the month of October. I wanted something weird and spooky.
00:13:24.31
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:13:32.07
Aaron
ah
00:13:32.98
Bradley Palermo
um, I should mention that Eric Bischoff is there as well. He's, he's dressed as Dracula and, uh,
00:13:39.13
Aaron
Yeah, he's an interviewer.
00:13:40.53
Bradley Palermo
He's an interviewer, and so is um Missy Hyatt. She's handling ringside interviews. But let's just get right into it. The very first match is the most infamous match of this pay-per-view. It is the Chamber of Horrors match.
00:13:51.95
Bradley Palermo
So i guess it's... Is it two teams? Or is it just every man from...
00:13:55.22
Aaron
Yeah.
00:13:55.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, two teams. So it's Sting, El Gigante, and the Steiner Brothers, right? On one side.
00:14:01.22
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:02.29
Bradley Palermo
Then the other side is Big Van Vader, Cactus Jack, Abdullah the Butcher... and the diamond stud who is razor Ramon.
00:14:08.71
Aaron
Scott Hall, Razor Ramon.
00:14:10.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:14:10.65
Aaron
Yeah.
00:14:10.98
Bradley Palermo
What pre Razor Ramon Scott Hall.
00:14:13.31
Aaron
El Gigante is also Giant Gonzalez, I'm sure you noticed.
00:14:13.66
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:14:16.79
Aaron
There's only so many seven foot five like, Latin dudes.
00:14:19.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah, he was, i saw him, he was on like the little promo in the beginning with the ghosts coming by.
00:14:24.93
Aaron
ha
00:14:25.48
Bradley Palermo
There was like a, yeah. ah Oh yeah, El Gigante. I said that wrong. Sorry. um Yeah, so the stipulation is, it's ah it's a cage match.
00:14:34.42
Bradley Palermo
Kind of like a hell in a cell. It's a huge cage that extends beyond the side of the ring. There's yeah extends beyond ringside a little bit and there's a another cage in the cage that has a electric chair like an old like you know fry a criminal electric chair with a thing that goes down on your head and everything
00:14:52.75
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:55.22
Bradley Palermo
And you have to get someone from the other side to go into the electric chair, strap them down, and then pull the lever that's outside of that little cage.
00:15:04.53
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:15:10.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:15:11.10
Aaron
They didn't really. What's funny about this is like they never said it was an electric chair. they like What do they call it? They called it the chair of torture.
00:15:19.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:15:20.00
Aaron
And they're like, you know, they got to flip the switch and then then the match is over. But they weren't like, he's going to fry. they They're going to kill this man.
00:15:26.08
Bradley Palermo
Right. Right. But I mean, this is very implied. it was very weird. The thing is like, there's so much steel and so many dudes in there and the way that the cameras, so that there's the camera, obviously like the hard cam, the cameras outside of the cage.
00:15:40.76
Bradley Palermo
And then the referee has like this GoPro type device, Allah, you know, in 1991.
00:15:41.20
Aaron
we
00:15:46.33
Aaron
Yeah, helmet they called the referee camera.
00:15:46.95
Bradley Palermo
um
00:15:49.10
Aaron
God, that was the stupidest name.
00:15:51.64
Bradley Palermo
So yeah, that's like your view inside. And there's just a shit ton of dudes. You can't tell who's on whose team. And you really can't tell what they're doing. It's like, I think they have like sticks and stuff and and weapons and handcuffs.
00:15:58.93
Aaron
Yeah.
00:16:03.17
Aaron
Coffins and yeah.
00:16:04.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Have you noticed um they were calling... the coffins, caskets. And in AEW, like a couple weeks ago, they were calling the casket a coffin.
00:16:10.78
Aaron
Did they?
00:16:16.05
Bradley Palermo
I feel like these wrestlers, they need to realize the casket is the fancy four-sided box that, you know, looks kind of nice.
00:16:16.14
Aaron
Yeah.
00:16:26.12
Aaron
hmm.
00:16:26.13
Bradley Palermo
And the coffin is like the developing world, like old school, like put them in a pine box.
00:16:30.57
Aaron
Like Wild West put them in a box. Yeah.
00:16:32.46
Bradley Palermo
but Yeah, like um with six sides.
00:16:32.65
Aaron
Yeah.
00:16:35.17
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:16:35.13
Bradley Palermo
But wrestling always gets it wrong. cause They're like, there's a casket. They've got caskets. I'm like, there there's not a casket in this building. You know, there's coffins.
00:16:42.86
Aaron
Did you notice the the random masked man who came out of one of the coffins?
00:16:48.59
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.
00:16:49.04
Aaron
There was a random dude.
00:16:49.03
Bradley Palermo
What was that?
00:16:50.12
Aaron
and I don't know who it was. I didn't look it up. I kind of feel like it was Terry Funk because I got like one good look at his nose and I was like, that looks like a Funk nose to me. But who knows if there was anybody who would randomly be in this match with Mick Foley as Cactus Jack, I feel like it'd be Terry Funk.
00:16:58.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:17:05.84
Bradley Palermo
yeah so i like how jr mentioned um that there were 2600 pounds of men in the ring so i was reading for yeah i was like wonder if that's a real number he bothered coming up with
00:17:12.50
Aaron
Yes, so it was reinforced. That was. Abdullah
00:17:19.29
Aaron
is like 475. Jesus. It was a mess.
00:17:23.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:24.26
Aaron
jesus
00:17:24.32
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he's skinny nowadays, but yeah, back then it crazy. Um, so yes, this was, this is widely considered to be one of the worst pay-per-view matches ever.
00:17:34.04
Bradley Palermo
It was, it was pretty bad. Okay. So basically what, what you kind of heard Abdullah saying at the beginning,
00:17:37.65
Aaron
it was a mess
00:17:41.09
Bradley Palermo
um And he was supposed to, his partner, Cactus Jack, believed that the butcher had Scott Steiner in this chair.
00:17:50.35
Bradley Palermo
And he called to him to pull the lever.
00:17:52.21
Aaron
Yeah.
00:17:52.19
Bradley Palermo
And then Cactus Jack, while he's like trying to climb up and figure out the lever, which was turned to on from the start of the match, it was incorrectly positioned and
00:17:59.58
Aaron
Yeah, I saw that. Did you also see that the switch like fell down and someone had to come in and like tape it back to where it was supposed to be?
00:18:07.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was, dude, it was like a whole clusterfuck. So they, but finally, they were, Scott Steiner turned around, got Abdullah when Cactus Jack figured it out, pulled the lever, and then you get like a fireworks show, strobe lights, like just fire...
00:18:24.21
Aaron
And Abdullah fainting like he's being electrocuted.
00:18:26.53
Bradley Palermo
Like he's, yeah, like he's like shaking, like he's being electrocuted.
00:18:28.20
Aaron
but
00:18:29.53
Bradley Palermo
He's already been busted open. So it looks, you know, like very gnarly, like he's being like shocked and like blood's coming out all over the place.
00:18:31.62
Aaron
yeah
00:18:36.90
Bradley Palermo
And the ring's on, the ring's on fucking fire. I mean, it goes out. I don't know. but The actual moment where the explosion happened, it did feel like, fuck, someone's getting electrocuted, which is horrifying.
00:18:48.47
Aaron
Yeah, it was kind of probably shocking if you were there and like a kid or whatever.
00:18:51.97
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you, there's smoke everywhere and then the lights go dark and there's, there's strobe lights and you, they zoom in on them and he's like, he's breathing and slobbering and, you know, and you're like, okay, well at least you didn't execute this guy.
00:19:03.32
Aaron
Right. Yeah.
00:19:07.62
Bradley Palermo
Cause it seems like that's what happens when you put someone in an electric chair and pull the lever.
00:19:12.43
Aaron
Yep.
00:19:12.39
Bradley Palermo
um And then they have on the side of the, on the side of the cage, they have a bunch of dudes with gurneys with their faces painted white. Like they're the, yeah, like the,
00:19:19.85
Aaron
Yeah, they were ghouls. They were the ghouls ready to take whoever was electrocuted away on a stretcher.
00:19:25.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, to take away the body. But he comes out and fucks them up.
00:19:30.01
Aaron
Yeah.
00:19:29.92
Bradley Palermo
He still fights to show that not only is he not dead, not only did he survive the electric chair, he's he can still fight.
00:19:33.27
Aaron
He's still a wild man. Wild man from the Sudan.
00:19:36.96
Bradley Palermo
So so i suppose that Sting, Elagante, and the Steiners won that one, even though they didn't successfully electrocute the other guy.
00:19:44.100
Aaron
They did, yeah.
00:19:48.02
Bradley Palermo
The team ah electrocuted themselves. but
00:19:50.90
Aaron
ah Did you notice that when the chair of torture was lowered that they were like playing creepy music in the arena like that shit cracked me up This is the cheesiest thing I've ever seen.
00:19:51.28
Bradley Palermo
i mean, which is...
00:19:58.25
Bradley Palermo
Oh my god. That's
00:20:02.96
Aaron
And my wife was watching it with me and she was like, this is like peak wrestling, isn't it?
00:20:02.90
Bradley Palermo
so hilarious.
00:20:07.26
Aaron
And I was like, I don't know if this is peak. It's peak goofy shit. And she was like, well, that's what I mean. Yeah.
00:20:12.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I know some people, they just, like, they feel like, well, that's what wre wrestling is just stupid. That's what it's supposed to be. I'm like, no, there's, I mean, even this era, like, there was a lot of really cool stuff, legitimate stuff, but it's there's a line with how much goofiness I like, and in wrestling kind of oscillates between being way above it and way and sort of just right on it, but um what did you think that Dave Meltzer gave this match?
00:20:19.95
Aaron
There's legit stuff too.
00:20:23.96
Aaron
Yeah.
00:20:32.72
Aaron
Yeah.
00:20:38.12
Aaron
Oh my God. ah Probably like 1.75.
00:20:42.52
Bradley Palermo
Negative two.
00:20:43.94
Aaron
neck I didn't know he goes negative. Wait, seriously?
00:20:47.68
Bradley Palermo
One of the lowest rated matches of the 90s from Meltzer.
00:20:51.27
Aaron
Amazing.
00:20:52.47
Bradley Palermo
He did give um another match. I looked up lowest Meltzer um rating of the 90s. And there was one where he gave it like negative 300 or something.
00:21:04.88
Bradley Palermo
ah Hopefully we can see that match too someday.
00:21:07.69
Aaron
Oh, I can't wait for that.
00:21:12.78
Bradley Palermo
So,
00:21:15.42
Aaron
Negative 400 stars. God. Well.
00:21:17.90
Bradley Palermo
yeah.
00:21:18.16
Aaron
my god
00:21:19.08
Bradley Palermo
but But he can give negative two for this one.
00:21:20.31
Aaron
well
00:21:21.79
Bradley Palermo
I didn't really know he did that either.
00:21:23.64
Aaron
Yeah, this was quite a way to start off this pay-per-view.
00:21:23.64
Bradley Palermo
And then...
00:21:26.52
Aaron
I did not. I mean, this thing was a mess from start to finish, but like mostly in a funny way. And then the finish to me just was stupid, but such is life.
00:21:36.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:21:38.09
Aaron
And then our second match was The Mysterious Creatures.
00:21:38.49
Bradley Palermo
That's pretty dumb.
00:21:42.62
Aaron
Don't know who these guys are. Versus PN News and Big Josh.
00:21:47.76
Bradley Palermo
and
00:21:48.07
Aaron
And... Yeah, this was a stinker. ah I guess. you I mean, it was a standard tag match. PN News is a very, very large man and ah kind of had like a hip hop aesthetic going on. He was rapping a little bit.
00:22:03.16
Aaron
But when he when he came to the ring.
00:22:03.29
Bradley Palermo
did that's That's why I did the boo, because he did like the worst hip hop rap like ever.
00:22:08.15
Aaron
I know his rap was bad. Yeah.
00:22:10.15
Bradley Palermo
And it wasn't even to the beat that was playing in the arena. It was like off rhythm. like In the 80s and 90s, there was kind of like... full house style of rap where you know like sitcoms would do it and shit where they'd just be like my name is brad and i am very rad i am cool and i am no fool and he was like he was like that you know like like really really bad
00:22:23.23
Aaron
Yeah. And I'm here to say, yeah. ah Yes.
00:22:34.63
Bradley Palermo
i was like
00:22:35.32
Aaron
Did you did you notice who Big Josh was?
00:22:37.100
Bradley Palermo
no really how did that pass how did that get past to me
00:22:38.40
Aaron
Did you look it up? Big Josh is Matt Bourne. Yeah, Matt Bourne, for those who are listening, the original Doink the Clown, that this big Josh. Yeah, I don't know.
00:22:48.59
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's cool.
00:22:48.100
Aaron
I i was like, who this guy looks kind of familiar. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh it's Matt Bourne.
00:22:53.28
Bradley Palermo
That makes sense.
00:22:53.51
Aaron
I did not look up who Creature 1 and 2 are. I bet you there are some people that we might know. But...
00:22:58.04
Bradley Palermo
I think I looked it up, but um it didn't seem familiar.
00:23:01.20
Aaron
Yeah, so this one came about as quickly as it went. It was about five minutes long, completely forgettable. pn News and Big Josh as characters never went anywhere.
00:23:12.57
Aaron
And the mysterious creatures were in masks, so I didn't even know who they were. And then on we went to the third match. Beautiful.
00:23:18.71
Bradley Palermo
Hold on, let me see who these creatures were.
00:23:19.46
Aaron
Go ahead. Okay. Okay.
00:23:22.36
Aaron
Joseph Magliano.
00:23:25.69
Aaron
don't
00:23:28.59
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:23:30.38
Bradley Palermo
and Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of why I can't do last time. Like I don't even know now that I'm looking at I don't really get it.
00:23:34.50
Aaron
know. Like, who are these guys?
00:23:35.15
Bradley Palermo
All right. Yeah. We can skip on right past that. So the third match, beautiful Bobby Eaton. oh um, by the way, that, that match got a half a star from Dave Meltzer, which so far I'm ah kind of agreeing with him a little bit here.
00:23:44.93
Aaron
Okay.
00:23:47.38
Aaron
Yeah.
00:23:48.22
Bradley Palermo
Um, third match, Bobby Eaton versus Terrence Taylor, the York foundation of the York foundation. Is that right?
00:23:55.47
Aaron
Yeah, I think they him and someone else on this pay-per-view were being managed by...
00:23:55.86
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:24:01.71
Aaron
Alexandra York. And she had a bunch of dudes that we've, we've seen before, but they all have like their full names. Like Terrence Taylor is Terry Taylor, who is now one of the behind the scenes agents or producers at WWE. wwe Very well known.
00:24:20.20
Aaron
Everybody who works at WWE wwe loves Terry Taylor. And that's what he was called for a really long time. But in this group, he was Terrence Taylor.
00:24:29.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And then Bobby Eaton is obviously from the Midnight Express. So they have those guys.
00:24:34.64
Aaron
Yep. Yep. Bobby, I think wins best hair. Maybe if not him, then Ricky Morton later. They both had luscious blonde mullets.
00:24:43.47
Bradley Palermo
And they both still do, right?
00:24:44.99
Aaron
They do. Yeah.
00:24:45.43
Bradley Palermo
Well, no.
00:24:45.85
Aaron
Yeah.
00:24:45.83
Bradley Palermo
Well, Bobby Eaton's dead, but Ricky Morton has ah the mullet still.
00:24:48.75
Aaron
He still has his mullet. Yeah. um I got to say, i really like this match.
00:24:50.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:24:52.84
Aaron
I thought this was super solid technical wrestling, also hard hitting.
00:24:55.52
Bradley Palermo
Me too.
00:24:57.82
Aaron
I enjoyed it thoroughly and it wasn't short either. It was like 15 minutes. So um yeah, I have nothing but positive things to say. i like both these guys.
00:25:07.70
Aaron
um What did you think?
00:25:09.53
Bradley Palermo
yeah this is the kind of this is the reason i really love early wcw is when they do these kind of like solid old school matches and
00:25:17.51
Aaron
Super athletic. Yeah, i like these mid card matches fairly good.
00:25:22.26
Bradley Palermo
Right, eating, you know, working the crowd. There's some flying offense in there too. I mean, it it wasn't like fast paced, but the finish was, a was it the Alabama jam leg drop off the top rope?
00:25:27.99
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:25:34.38
Aaron
Yeah, leg drop from the top rope b and Bobby Eaton wins.
00:25:35.28
Bradley Palermo
That's kind of cool.
00:25:37.90
Aaron
i thought it was very good. I was like, OK, this is turning it around. Maybe maybe it's not all going to be as bad as the Chamber of Horrors.
00:25:45.65
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, this is fine. But also, I was like, okay, you finally erased all this Halloween shit. And now you're getting into like what I like about you. I mean, you could have had things kind of Halloween ish, but not as I don't know, as far as it went.
00:25:53.70
Aaron
Yeah.
00:25:59.50
Bradley Palermo
I mean, i mean, like
00:26:00.50
Aaron
Just over the top. dusty was Dusty was on a little too much LSD this time.
00:26:04.82
Bradley Palermo
I think so. Did you, you know that you're, you've seen that pay-per-view from WWF where they hung the, uh, big boss man and in the middle of a cage?
00:26:16.91
Aaron
I don't know if I've seen it, but I've heard about it
00:26:18.97
Bradley Palermo
They hung them like i was just watching random peacock and when I first saw it a few years ago, they just hang them in the middle. i mean, right in the middle of the arena and it fades to black with boss man like dead on a rope.
00:26:26.50
Aaron
See, that's wild.
00:26:29.61
Aaron
Oh my God.
00:26:31.13
Bradley Palermo
I was like, dude yeah, and I was like, what?
00:26:31.50
Aaron
That's the end of the pay per view. Holy shit.
00:26:34.67
Bradley Palermo
I think it was Undertaker who who put him up there and then Yeah, I was like this, this reminds me of that, like, it's just really weird and dark and but that was probably this is a little more campy, I guess, because the guy, you know, got back up.
00:26:37.50
Aaron
That is dark. Uh huh.
00:26:46.61
Aaron
Yeah.
00:26:47.91
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, that one was a um we don't have to give them melting on everything, but it's just okay.
00:26:52.03
Aaron
No, let's do it. Yeah, that this should be like a three or a three and a half.
00:26:55.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Okay. It was a three. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:57.44
Aaron
Yeah.
00:27:02.97
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:27:10.68
Bradley Palermo
Um, so Jimmy Garvin versus, uh, Johnny B bad.
00:27:10.80
Aaron
Yeah.
00:27:14.57
Bradley Palermo
Uh, you know, and don't know what to say really about this one.
00:27:17.45
Aaron
Well, the first thing I noticed was when Johnny B.
00:27:17.44
Bradley Palermo
There was,
00:27:20.95
Aaron
Bad comes out, he's, you know, obviously very flamboyant. He's supposed to be like a little Richard type character. um He had some kind of like special effects thing when when he did like his like robe flourish.
00:27:34.26
Aaron
He had like these things that I think were supposed to like shoot out smoke or streamers or something, and they didn't work. And it just reminded me like there was so much throughout this pay-per-view where they had like these effects.
00:27:45.88
Aaron
And they just like, they just like didn't work at all.
00:27:45.92
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:27:48.93
Aaron
Like in the beginning with the Chamber of Horrors, like the WCW logo was supposed to be on fire and it was like just like a little bit of fire here.
00:27:55.38
Bradley Palermo
yeah that stage that stage setup was like the entrance ramp was pretty bad too like it looked like a haunted house that the great like the great school made a haunted house and they all got together and like
00:27:56.52
Aaron
And that is production value, Dusty. Come on.
00:28:08.92
Aaron
It costs like $25.
00:28:11.55
Bradley Palermo
painted poster boards and stuff. And then there was, there was like styrofoam gravestones, just sort of, it was, yeah, it was like somebody went to Party City, like right before it started.
00:28:17.60
Aaron
Yeah, with all the dumb shit written on them. Yeah.
00:28:23.72
Bradley Palermo
It was like
00:28:25.45
Aaron
I was surprised at how much ah how pro free birds the crowd was. Because like as far as I remember, birds are usually heels.
00:28:31.15
Bradley Palermo
mm-hmm.
00:28:35.86
Aaron
But I guess in this match they were not. Johnny B. Badd definitely was not the crowd's favorite. um
00:28:43.26
Bradley Palermo
and
00:28:43.39
Aaron
So i don't know that the free birds are doing the Atlanta Braves like chop thing.
00:28:47.99
Bradley Palermo
All right.
00:28:49.13
Aaron
Everybody loved that.
00:28:49.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I guess they're getting close to their home turf.
00:28:52.21
Aaron
Yeah, Chattanooga, I guess, is very close to Atlanta, so they were all Braves fans.
00:28:55.71
Bradley Palermo
You got Peanuthead, you know, he's he's a reoccurring character in these eras.
00:29:02.50
Aaron
Yeah, but did when they they call him the Godfather now, the Godfather Teddy Long, I mean, they called him Peanuthead too later when he was like being an asshole.
00:29:06.94
Bradley Palermo
Interesting. interesting Yeah.
00:29:10.57
Aaron
But, um you know, this was just fine to me. Garvin smacked Johnny B. Badd with an elbow real good, like towards the beginning of the match.
00:29:20.75
Aaron
And I just thought it was funny that commentary was just kind of shitting all over bad. Like, well, he's a very inexperienced rookie and he he's doing things that I would never do I'm like, geez, why are you being so mean to Mark Merrill?
00:29:31.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:29:33.53
Aaron
I mean, he he kind of sucks, but like.
00:29:35.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. That's funny.
00:29:36.50
Aaron
Pretty funny. there There was also ah Johnny B. Bad had this really weird sunset flip that he tried to do from the top rope. Do you remember that?
00:29:47.43
Aaron
Like he tried to do a sunset flip from the top rope, which I feel like is a terrible idea to begin with. And then it just didn't look good at all. They kind of botched it. And I was like, what is going on here?
00:29:55.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:29:56.89
Aaron
You know, like this is just kind of a sloppy match. I guess maybe Mark Merrow, Johnny B. Bad was... fairly new because he he didn't really do a whole lot.
00:30:06.02
Aaron
And, you know, Jimmy Garvin is like, by this point, him and Michael Hayes is the free birds had been around probably for like almost 10 years, I would imagine.
00:30:14.02
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah it's like shenanigans garvin pins bad but like um teddy long yeah and it's a bad still a win with the school boy roll up in like under seven minutes for three quarters of a star from meltzer so yeah
00:30:14.91
Aaron
you know, you
00:30:20.14
Aaron
the ref is distracted by by peanut head. Yeah.
00:30:31.41
Aaron
Yep, that tracks. It was utterly forgettable. But... The next match, we got to see Stunning Steve Austin versus Dustin Rhodes for the World Television Championship. And this to me was another super solid match. I, of course, know of Stunning Steve, you know, Austin as Stunning Steve, but I haven't seen a ton of Stunning Steve matches.
00:30:53.52
Aaron
I thought this was great. Austin is just like a beast. And it's so funny to watch Austin as Stone Cold in like 98 through 2002 or whatever.
00:31:04.82
Aaron
He never wrestled like this at all. Like this was like technically sound, fast paced.
00:31:06.68
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:31:10.53
Aaron
I mean, Dustin Rhodes has always been pretty good in my opinion, but like I was really impressed by Stunning Steve.
00:31:16.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was cool. um I like, I mean, you know, does Goldust and Stone Cold Steve Austin have much many matches like later in the Attitude Era?
00:31:27.16
Aaron
I don't know about a bunch, but they definitely have some.
00:31:27.23
Bradley Palermo
Because
00:31:29.93
Bradley Palermo
yeah so it's it's cool to see you know two guys that would go on to be such a big deal and completely different and and very like you know not i mean i guess within within that decade they would be those other wwf characters but yeah i was excited to see them but they but it but like them just kind of being like old school solid wrestlers and dustin looked
00:31:35.64
Aaron
Completely different characters. Yeah.
00:31:45.40
Aaron
hmm.
00:31:53.31
Aaron
It was another super solid mid card thing.
00:31:55.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and Dustin looks kind of awesome too. He just, he looks like a fucking guy you wouldn't want to mess with. Like, does.
00:32:00.72
Aaron
And he looks so much like dusty back then too, with the haircut and everything. Like the one thing about goal, him being gold dust is like, you never saw his face.
00:32:04.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:08.09
Aaron
So you didn't really know he was a Rhodes.
00:32:10.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:10.78
Aaron
Um, especially when I was a kid, I was like, Oh, who is this weird guy? know, like, i didn't know. Oh, that's Dustin Rhodes. It's dusty son.
00:32:17.42
Bradley Palermo
I noticed like just from watching random stunning Steve Austin matches over the years, like he, and you know, and when he was tagging, what was it? The ah Hollywood blondes.
00:32:27.15
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:32:27.69
Bradley Palermo
Is that, that was the tactic. Yeah.
00:32:28.94
Aaron
Yeah.
00:32:29.30
Bradley Palermo
They were doing like a lot of stuff. i Like him off the top rope and he's like landing on his knees and stuff.
00:32:33.93
Aaron
Yeah.
00:32:35.58
Bradley Palermo
Like, I think he probably cashed out a lot of body parts.
00:32:38.51
Aaron
Wore himself out.
00:32:39.28
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:39.47
Aaron
yeah
00:32:40.07
Bradley Palermo
that That the style change probably was for his, maybe his own safety, you know, because he was.
00:32:45.31
Aaron
I mean, it probably was that was probably part of it. But I think really the main reason is because he knew he didn't have to do any of that anymore.
00:32:52.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:53.12
Aaron
Like when he was Stone Cold, the character was so over.
00:32:53.06
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:55.64
Aaron
All he had to do was punch, kick, stunner, drink a beer, stunner. I'm out of there. He barely had to do anything. And he was so over. So I mean, you're probably right. Like he was doing stuff that I just never saw him do as Stone Cold. And you'd have to imagine that part of that was because he had done it so much in the past.
00:33:14.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:33:14.88
Aaron
Maybe his body was a little worn out. um This ah Dustin got busted open from a punch from Austin, I think. I don't know if Dustin actually busted himself open or not. I feel like it might have been a hard way but bleed.
00:33:29.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I don't know. All of sudden there was just, yeah, juice. So I'm not sure.
00:33:32.71
Aaron
The one thing I didn't like that Dustin was doing and he, he pinned Austin like four or five times and he kept like slamming his hand down on the mat counting with the referee.
00:33:45.27
Aaron
And I was like, dude, what are the fuck are you doing?
00:33:45.44
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.
00:33:47.10
Aaron
Like pin him for real. You stupid idiot.
00:33:49.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, let the ref do the count, right?
00:33:50.18
Aaron
Like, Yeah, like it just I don't know, it took me out of it. Like I understand he's trying to be baby face and trying to rile up the crowd or whatever. But like, it just took me out of it psychology wise, because I'm like, if you're trying to win, you need to actually like hook a leg, you know, like make it seem like your pin is legitimate.
00:34:02.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:34:05.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, right. Yeah. um He was 21 at this point, which is pretty crazy.
00:34:11.78
Aaron
Yeah. Super crazy.
00:34:14.42
Bradley Palermo
I noticed that the... Because sometimes in this era, not so much... Well, I guess we do see... Maybe we do see more diverse crowds. I was seeing like the grandmas and...
00:34:23.72
Aaron
Yeah.
00:34:24.15
Bradley Palermo
The crowd wasn't just like all white people. Like it was pretty mixed bunch of folks down there in Chattanooga.
00:34:27.54
Aaron
Yeah.
00:34:30.79
Bradley Palermo
um So I don't know. I always like to try to try to get a ah vibe for like, who's there? Is it, is it all just like, you know, teenagers saying suck it? Or is it like, do you have the ground?
00:34:41.22
Bradley Palermo
Like this area, you still have like the entire family, you know, and people
00:34:44.44
Aaron
Yeah, although i I do feel like I heard the women, like the girls, like screaming more than anything else as as far as crowd noise goes.
00:34:53.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:34:53.82
Aaron
um
00:34:54.47
Bradley Palermo
Back when women still went to wrestling.
00:34:54.90
Aaron
it
00:34:56.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's crazy.
00:34:57.43
Aaron
Yeah, so ah so this match was great. It ended in a time limit draw. I guess it was 15-minute time limit, which was normal for the television championship. So as a result of that, Austin retained the championship. But again, like a super solid mid-card match.
00:35:14.40
Aaron
And, you know, a part of me wishes that Stone Cold wrestled a bit like Stunning Steve, but such is life.
00:35:21.32
Bradley Palermo
My, ah
00:35:24.13
Bradley Palermo
yeah, and my, oh.
00:35:25.02
Aaron
Oh, wait, what did Meltzer give ah Austin versus Rhodes? Hopefully like a three or a four.
00:35:34.00
Aaron
Okay, yeah.
00:35:34.87
Bradley Palermo
So, wow. So, yeah. um And then, yeah, okay. So then it's Oz versus Bill Kazmaier. Kazmaier. Oh, Bill Kazmaier versus ah
00:35:41.82
Aaron
Kazmaier, yeah.
00:35:44.35
Bradley Palermo
Oz is, and if you've never heard Kevin Nash talk about this on the random documentaries, um it's pretty fucking funny, but Oz is Kevin Nash, later known as Diesel.
00:35:55.32
Bradley Palermo
um So you have a guy who's going to be Razor Ramon in the future. Now you have the guy who's going to be Diesel in the future. um Or but some you may know him as Big Daddy Diesel or some shit.
00:36:07.25
Bradley Palermo
I don't know.
00:36:07.38
Aaron
Yeah, but people also know them as Scott Hall and and Kevin Nash because of coming back to WCW.
00:36:09.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Kevin Nash, of course. Yeah, but um but this is...
00:36:13.27
Aaron
But my God, this was bad.
00:36:15.41
Bradley Palermo
he's He's not... The story goes, like Dusty was like, you're going to be Oz. And he was like, you mean the Wizard of Oz? like Oz is the name of like the city.
00:36:24.80
Aaron
Yeah, the city.
00:36:25.22
Bradley Palermo
And he was like, no, Oz, baby.
00:36:25.88
Aaron
yeah
00:36:27.93
Bradley Palermo
so yeah so he's just wearing a this is you know obviously kevin nash the fucking huge uh tall tall guy and yeah and he's wearing he's just a tall guy tall white guy in a big fucking green robe and that makes him eyes emerald green
00:36:28.24
Aaron
Oz, baby.
00:36:32.35
Aaron
Just wearing green.
00:36:36.49
Aaron
He's like seven feet tall.
00:36:45.54
Aaron
Emerald green. Yeah. And Emerald green tights. Yeah. And then Bill Kazmier, I had never heard of before, but I guess he was like a strong man. And at one point was kind of like had the same distinction as Mark Henry.
00:36:59.60
Aaron
I guess he was the world's strongest man for something, some sort of lifting.
00:37:01.60
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:37:03.70
Aaron
um I don't I don't think Kazmier.
00:37:04.26
Bradley Palermo
So his entrance.
00:37:06.91
Aaron
Yeah. Tell them.
00:37:07.69
Bradley Palermo
How about that entrance?
00:37:08.13
Aaron
Tell them about the entrance.
00:37:09.70
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he comes in with this large ball that's painted like a globe. but Large.
00:37:14.64
Aaron
He's carrying the earth.
00:37:15.98
Bradley Palermo
like Like five feet well long ball.
00:37:18.04
Aaron
Yeah.
00:37:19.63
Bradley Palermo
And he's yeah, he's carrying it on his shoulders. He's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders because he's the world's strongest man.
00:37:27.63
Aaron
This was very short and not very good.
00:37:27.56
Bradley Palermo
i mean...
00:37:30.59
Aaron
i think it was just under four minutes, completely forgettable. And I can see why Kevin Nash doesn't want anybody to know that he was Oz.
00:37:38.75
Bradley Palermo
ah Yeah, it was Bill Kazmaier put Kevin Nash in a torture rack submission on his shoulders.
00:37:43.69
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:37:45.80
Bradley Palermo
I believe that's what that's called.
00:37:47.30
Aaron
who
00:37:47.52
Bradley Palermo
and um And yeah, it was and was over.
00:37:48.78
Aaron
One and a half. That's what I say.
00:37:50.36
Bradley Palermo
It was ah was kind of a squash, but of three minutes, 59 seconds, you know?
00:37:55.77
Aaron
Yeah.
00:37:56.66
Bradley Palermo
So that's all there is to say about that one.
00:37:58.20
Aaron
One and a half from Dave. What did Dave give it?
00:37:59.38
Bradley Palermo
Just two ridiculous entrances. and What'd you say?
00:38:02.26
Aaron
What did Dave give it? One and a half. One.
00:38:04.62
Bradley Palermo
DUDE.
00:38:05.77
Aaron
Dud. Okay. Yeah, that tracks.
00:38:06.89
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:38:07.83
Aaron
I'm being too nice.
00:38:08.11
Bradley Palermo
it's like it's like i guess dud is zero stars but at least you're not negative you know um van hammer versus doug somers somers yeah van hammer versus doug somers it was another squash i don't know if dudes these are getting like
00:38:10.93
Aaron
Yeah. Dud is right.
00:38:18.34
Aaron
Summers, yeah.
00:38:24.32
Aaron
Even shorter, it was a minute.
00:38:26.36
Bradley Palermo
yeah it was this fucking van hammer guy he's a play on like van halen he's got like his curly like mullet-y metal hair and he's yeah you know like a fucking flying v guitar and uh uh yeah he's just dicking around with that guitar he comes out and um
00:38:31.15
Aaron
Van Halen? Yeah, David Lee Roth.
00:38:37.56
Aaron
And he had an electric guitar that I don't think was real.
00:38:46.70
Aaron
Doug Summers is already in the ring looking old and schlubby.
00:38:50.38
Bradley Palermo
yeah no insurance yeah
00:38:52.06
Aaron
Nothing. This was ah that like squash matches are usually not that exciting, but this was a like a vehemently bad squash match, like actively awful.
00:39:03.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um
00:39:04.61
Aaron
But the crowd liked Fan Hammer.
00:39:06.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I never heard anything about that guy since.
00:39:07.73
Aaron
He took off his shirt and all the girlies yelled.
00:39:10.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:39:10.81
Aaron
Fan Hammer.
00:39:10.70
Bradley Palermo
Oh, my God.
00:39:11.87
Aaron
He's so tan.
00:39:12.01
Bradley Palermo
So he finished with a slingshot suplex, and then Meltzer gave it a dud.
00:39:17.17
Aaron
The terrible slingshot scene. He fucking botched the suplex. It was like he like tucked him and they had like a gentle roll onto the mat. Oh God.
00:39:26.90
Bradley Palermo
God. Yeah, it was.
00:39:29.53
Aaron
But you know what? They redeemed themselves after that one because the next match was Brian Pillman versus Richard Morton, also known as Ricky Morton for the inaugural, uh, WCW light heavyweight championship.
00:39:44.88
Aaron
Um, Sadly, the referee camera is back and it was on top of Nick Patrick's stupid fucking head. And I hate Nick Patrick and I always will, uh, in case that wasn't clear, but
00:39:56.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I was going to say he's the dipshit from ECW that like intentionally counts.
00:40:00.32
Aaron
no, from WCW. Yeah. with the went The one that we watched with NWO where, yeah, he's like, Oh, my neck hurts.
00:40:02.12
Bradley Palermo
Oh.
00:40:07.44
Aaron
I'm going to count really, really slow. But then when NWO gets the pin, going count really fast. Like,
00:40:12.20
Bradley Palermo
Right, yeah. But he's like way smaller at this point.
00:40:16.41
Aaron
Yeah, he's he's.
00:40:16.50
Bradley Palermo
So it took me a second. I was like, oh, that's fucking Nick Patrick. Yeah.
00:40:20.16
Aaron
He's a shithole.
00:40:20.85
Bradley Palermo
He looks like Kenny Powers are one of those.
00:40:22.78
Aaron
ah He does. this He does look like Kenny Powers, but you know what?
00:40:23.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:26.98
Aaron
Like this match delivered. I mean, when you when I think of like a light heavyweight championship or like a light heavyweight class in boxing or whatever, it's usually just like a little faster, a little more exciting, you know, and I feel like this match delivered in that regard.
00:40:43.36
Aaron
um Ricky or Richard was doing heelish stuff. Every time Brian got an advantage, Brian Pillman is like flying Brian at this point. He's not crazy. Brian Pillman, uh, for, you know, for like maybe four or five more years. But, um,
00:40:58.72
Aaron
Yeah, i I thought this was a really solid match as well. Like, say what you will about all the crap in between. But but a lot of these mid card matches are very solid.
00:41:08.62
Aaron
um Pillman wins with his signature cross body off the top rope, and he is the first light heavyweight champion.
00:41:15.80
Bradley Palermo
a championship that would be abandoned by WCW in 11 months and only five reigns.
00:41:21.63
Aaron
My God, that quick.
00:41:24.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:41:24.98
Aaron
That's stupid.
00:41:25.02
Bradley Palermo
So it's kind of like,
00:41:25.95
Aaron
Like, it was a good idea. i mean, maybe they just didn't have enough people? don't
00:41:29.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I mean, I guess later on they did the cruiserweight, right. Which is kind of the same idea, but, um, but yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it's, it's always cool to see Pillman and, um, you know, Ricky Morton going in a singles match.
00:41:33.13
Aaron
Yeah. Similar, certainly, yeah. Did you like the match?
00:41:44.19
Bradley Palermo
It's not something I've seen that many times.
00:41:44.54
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:41:46.23
Bradley Palermo
Um, yeah, it's, it's good. It was solid. And uh,
00:41:50.58
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. I don't have like a ton of strong feelings about it, but, ah
00:41:55.39
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, there there wasn't, it wasn't like, I mean, we know both of those guys. They put on a performance typical of what we've seen of them in the past. um It didn't disappoint in my mind, but it also wasn't like groundbreaking. I mean, the crowd loves Flying Brian.
00:42:13.06
Aaron
The girlies love Flying Brian. the The girls really like all the pretty boys, you know, and I don't blame them, but yeah. Yeah, it was. it I mean, it wasn't going to like win any awards, but I'm hoping that Papa Meltzer gave it at least like a three or a three and a half.
00:42:28.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Give me one second here.
00:42:30.34
Bradley Palermo
Oh, I was going to say, um, these guys, I guess they won a tournament to get to this point in this match. So this was like the end of like a long series of matches see what the first heavyweight champion would be.
00:42:38.63
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:42:40.89
Bradley Palermo
um
00:42:41.62
Bradley Palermo
There was a lot of references to Japan during this match. I guess WCW in general in this pay-per-view. WCW, I guess, had a strong relationship with Japan.
00:42:51.03
Aaron
With New Japan? Yeah, I think, um I mean, the the next pay-per-view in their chronology was Starrcade, but I think the one after that was like a New Japan show that they did with WCW, and it was a lot of like WCW versus New Japan guys or like WCW teaming up with a New Japan person and a tag match kind of stuff.
00:43:10.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:43:12.18
Aaron
They did that a few times throughout the early 90s, and I think it was pretty successful.
00:43:12.56
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:43:16.47
Aaron
I mean, they they were selling out the Tokyo Dome, which is like 60,000 people. So maybe we'll have to watch one of those one of these days.
00:43:21.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:43:24.09
Bradley Palermo
Oh, here I have my notes for that match. um I said they're on the mat a lot. It's a little bit slow, but Pillman gets screams for every little move, clotheslines, drop kicks, anything, even the simple stuff. They just love them.
00:43:35.56
Aaron
Yeah.
00:43:35.85
Bradley Palermo
And um refs got that stupid helmet on again. pour poor, poor guy. But you already mentioned that.
00:43:42.12
Aaron
Yeah.
00:43:42.25
Bradley Palermo
um Okay. But okay, but back back to what Meltzer gave this match. Yes, he gave it three.
00:43:48.39
Aaron
Okay.
00:43:49.04
Bradley Palermo
So...
00:43:49.21
Aaron
He's a little, is the ones that are good, he's a little low, I think, in my opinion, but I understand.
00:43:53.97
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:43:55.53
Aaron
He's he's very discerning.
00:43:55.52
Bradley Palermo
It's, it's easy to be pissed off though, after you've seen some of these matches, you know, to be like kind of negative on the whole thing. But, um, after that we get into, um, the Halloween phantom versus Tom Zank.
00:44:01.38
Aaron
Yeah.
00:44:07.71
Bradley Palermo
Is it Zank?
00:44:08.26
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:09.49
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:44:10.28
Bradley Palermo
So the Halloween phantom is like dressed in a black hood.
00:44:15.67
Aaron
like ah Like a Phantom of the Opera meets a luchador shit.
00:44:17.55
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah But you can like see enough through the mask to tell that it's, you see the mustache.
00:44:22.30
Aaron
Let's see the mustache.
00:44:24.58
Bradley Palermo
you I mean, if you know wrestling in this era and also that body, you can kind of see, I mean, once you see the face, no one really has a body and a face like ravishing Rick Rude.
00:44:30.09
Aaron
Uh-huh.
00:44:33.42
Aaron
Yeah.
00:44:34.18
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he's probably the skinniest,
00:44:34.66
Aaron
Yeah.
00:44:36.95
Bradley Palermo
muscle head you've ever seen like he's got like zero percent body fat and just huge bulgy muscles everywhere and he's in this tight shirt you're like i yeah you're like that's okay they're averaging recruit they're going to tell us that um phantom uh you know beat beat zank or whatever in a minute 27.
00:44:43.89
Aaron
Big lats.
00:44:48.18
Aaron
Yeah.
00:44:53.90
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:44:55.42
Aaron
Obliterated him.
00:44:56.47
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:44:56.63
Aaron
Like Zank got like two moves in and yeah, Rick Rude beats him with his with his signature, which is some kind of a neck breaker. I forget the name of it, but a stinker.
00:45:05.61
Bradley Palermo
yeah this was rick roots wcw debut i guess
00:45:06.21
Aaron
This got to be a dud from Meltzer.
00:45:11.03
Aaron
Oh shit. Okay. I guess that kind of makes more sense because.
00:45:12.56
Bradley Palermo
and well he'd be later later unmasked by poly dangerously paul hayman and and presented as rick rude which they probably i don't know that was a kind of not a lot of build to that like here's a mystery guy here's that let's solve the mystery but um
00:45:20.93
Aaron
Yeah.
00:45:27.51
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, well they were talking about, that you know, who's the Phantom? Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt were like, Missy, who's the Phantom? Missy's like, oh, I know who the Phantom is, but I'm not going to tell you.
00:45:37.52
Aaron
and I'm like, whatever.
00:45:37.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:45:39.55
Aaron
OK, this is stupid not more dumb, dusty Halloween shit.
00:45:43.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And then, um, when he, the finisher was Rick Rude's rude awakening and they called it that.
00:45:48.86
Aaron
Yeah, rude awakening. Right. Yeah.
00:45:50.28
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, Meltzer didn't rate this one.
00:45:53.67
Aaron
Really?
00:45:53.63
Bradley Palermo
So it has an NR, which I don't know if he did that on purpose or if he just was like, i and I think he just didn't rate it.
00:45:54.06
Aaron
OK.
00:45:58.23
Aaron
I hate it so much I refuse to even give it a dud.
00:46:02.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I think he just didn't make it onto the newsletter. Um, And then we got to the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
00:46:06.20
Aaron
All right.
00:46:10.73
Bradley Palermo
So it's the Enforcers, Arne Anderson and Larry Zbysko versus, they're the champions, versus the Patriots, Todd Champion and Firebreaker Chip.
00:46:21.83
Bradley Palermo
Those are some dumb ass men.
00:46:22.37
Aaron
Two more dudes. who i Yeah. Who the fuck are these guys?
00:46:26.88
Bradley Palermo
Dude, what the hell? Yeah.
00:46:28.69
Aaron
I don't know, man. I literally wrote who the fuck are the Patriots? LOL. Like this match was fine, but not knowing either of those guys, I was like, yeah, go Arne and Larry, even though I'm not supposed to be rooting for you.
00:46:34.64
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:46:40.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. That's what I said. I was like, you know, it was classic tag team stuff. It was good.
00:46:45.65
Aaron
hmm.
00:46:45.59
Bradley Palermo
It was actually like a pretty good match. I mean, or for, for having some, you know, jabronis out there I never heard of in like American flag tights or whatever.
00:46:48.28
Aaron
Yeah.
00:46:54.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. yeah I mean, the enforcers of course like work well as a unit and, um,
00:46:59.51
Aaron
Yeah. You can't you can't deny Arne Anderson and Larry Zbysko were incredible wrestlers. They had great timing. They knew how to get heat. um Yeah, it wasn't a bad match. I just had zero emotional investment in Firebreaker Chip and Todd Champion.
00:47:19.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, i don't know where they went with their career, but I never heard of those names.
00:47:23.32
Aaron
They're going nowhere.
00:47:25.50
Bradley Palermo
But the fucking enforcers were, you know, it was kind of like, there was probably about 25 years age difference between the enforcers and these Patriot guys.
00:47:36.13
Aaron
yeah Probably.
00:47:37.68
Bradley Palermo
I mean, it was very much like veterans versus maybe 15, 20 years, but veterans versus like sort of these young, you know,
00:47:44.52
Aaron
Young boys.
00:47:46.41
Bradley Palermo
um The enforcers, of course, retained the double team. Spinebuster and Meltzer gave it a two.
00:47:54.70
Aaron
Two and a half. Oh, okay.
00:47:55.78
Bradley Palermo
Two.
00:47:55.95
Aaron
Okay.
00:47:56.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you're close. so
00:47:57.11
Aaron
Yeah. So now now is when we get the reveal, shocking reveal that the Phantom is Rick Rude because Paul E.
00:47:57.77
Bradley Palermo
um
00:48:04.75
Aaron
Dangerously is interviewed on the ramp by Eric Bischoff. Paul's very upset, I guess. WCW doesn't want him to be an an announcer or a...
00:48:15.36
Aaron
an anchor or whatever. And so now he's like, well, I have my manager's license and I'm going to take this company apart brick by brick. And I'm going to start by going after sting. And he's got Medusa with him.
00:48:25.31
Bradley Palermo
I
00:48:27.19
Aaron
Medusa pre nose job, by the way, don't know if you noticed.
00:48:30.77
Bradley Palermo
didn't notice that.
00:48:31.02
Aaron
I was like, Oh my, that's a that's a nose I haven't seen before.
00:48:32.90
Bradley Palermo
That's funny.
00:48:35.21
Aaron
And yeah, we, we, we find out that the, the, the phantom is Rick rude. Shocking. And yeah, kind of a forgettable thing. I guess, you know, they're obviously setting up Rick Rude versus Sting, but I don't even know if that happened like very soon after this because I looked at what Starrcade was all about the next pay-per-view and it was all just like,
00:48:57.53
Aaron
random ass tag team matches. So they didn't they didn't feud then.
00:48:59.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:49:01.51
Aaron
Maybe it was on TV or something, but it I would have been interested in Rick Rude versus staying. I feel like did we see that match on a previous thing that we watched?
00:49:09.39
Bradley Palermo
I don't know.
00:49:10.71
Aaron
Maybe.
00:49:11.28
Bradley Palermo
He's watched so much. It's getting crazy.
00:49:12.65
Aaron
I know it all blends together.
00:49:12.88
Bradley Palermo
but Rick gave a little promo about how he only cares about three things.
00:49:15.88
Aaron
then
00:49:19.46
Bradley Palermo
His self, his women, and his money.
00:49:22.38
Aaron
Yeah, fair.
00:49:22.47
Bradley Palermo
so yeah That's an easy way to get some heat. And then we have Ron Simmons training, grown ass.
00:49:29.32
Aaron
His Rocky montage.
00:49:30.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Training for football on his old campus or some shit.
00:49:31.58
Aaron
but
00:49:35.08
Aaron
ah hu
00:49:35.45
Bradley Palermo
You're just like, dude, you're a wrestler.
00:49:36.14
Aaron
He's an all American.
00:49:37.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. But you're like a wrestler now. Why are you training football? Like what is happening? Like, this is really like, do what you did like seven years ago. Like show us what it's like. He's like wearing the colors of his school and stuff.
00:49:48.42
Aaron
Yeah, and doing all kinds of football drills. And then his coach talks about him. i also could not hear what his coach was saying at all.
00:49:52.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:49:54.84
Aaron
Like the the sound was horrible for this for whatever reason.
00:49:55.21
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:49:58.64
Aaron
But yes.
00:49:58.63
Bradley Palermo
it's funny how wcw like eventually you know has all this money to get all this talent like a lot of money that's what they're known for ted turner was like fuck ben sick man uh let's just pay more pay way more but they never really had the production even when they had all that money for the wrestlers like the production was never that slick it
00:50:03.59
Aaron
hu
00:50:09.33
Aaron
Not now, apparently.
00:50:18.15
Aaron
No, it was always kind of gritty. I mean, that at this point, it feels like pretty cheap and hokey, but, you know, 95, 96, there was sort of an edge to it. Like it had it was polished from what we're watching now, but but it certainly has never been the level of WWF's production.
00:50:30.05
Bradley Palermo
more watching now, yeah.
00:50:35.63
Aaron
Absolutely. Yeah.
00:50:36.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it seems like something you could you could buy. it seems like something they could have afforded, but maybe, i don't know, they just figured that was good enough for wrestling, I guess.
00:50:45.02
Aaron
I don't know.
00:50:45.02
Bradley Palermo
We'll
00:50:45.46
Aaron
Yeah. Who's to say, but yeah. So the Ron Simmons football training led to the main event, uh, Ron Simmons with dusty roads in his corner for one night only.
00:50:56.49
Aaron
They were very quick to say against Lex Luger with Harley race in his corner.
00:50:57.97
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yes.
00:51:01.53
Aaron
And this was for the WCW world heavyweight championship. And it was a two out of three falls match. I guess apparently the first two out of three falls main event that had ever happened in the WCW pay-per-view, which I thought was kind of interesting.
00:51:13.81
Bradley Palermo
Interesting. yeah I didn't and know that. then we have good old Danny McBride.
00:51:16.59
Aaron
I didn't recognize this belt. Did you, did you, did you write like, was that belt reminiscent of your childhood? Cause I just know the big gold one, you know, that like Hogan spray painted over and stuff, I did not recognize this one at all.
00:51:25.75
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.
00:51:30.00
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I don't, yeah. I don't, I don't recall too much about this belt, but I mean this, this era is kind of, I like it a lot, but it's not what I was watching.
00:51:38.49
Bradley Palermo
I was watching like WWF on like Saturdays, you know, and then then, and then when raw came out, I was watching raw from the, like the beginning.
00:51:42.65
Aaron
Okay.
00:51:47.47
Aaron
Yeah, they definitely are going with the sports based presentation here through a lot of the matches.
00:51:47.51
Bradley Palermo
um So like,
00:51:52.63
Aaron
They were like, JR was like, so-and-so's ranked number fourth in the world and this person's number five. And I'm like, according to who?
00:51:59.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:52:00.78
Aaron
Uh-huh.
00:52:05.62
Aaron
ah hu
00:52:06.48
Bradley Palermo
um two out of three falls. So that's kind of, it was, done this was kind of interesting. I mean,
00:52:11.06
Aaron
Yeah, it wasn't bad. I mean, that the crowd was super hyped. They really wanted Simmons to win. um Luger was getting reactions to it wasn't really getting completely booed the entire time, but clearly people were more on Simmons side.
00:52:25.36
Aaron
um And I, you know, I like the match. I thought, it It had good pacing. um Simmons won the first fall pretty quickly with, I think, his like shoulder tackle thing.
00:52:36.09
Aaron
um And Luger you know was like selling his his back. They had these minute-long breaks in between the falls, like a boxing match.
00:52:44.61
Bradley Palermo
I like that.
00:52:45.87
Aaron
That was kind of funny. Yeah.
00:52:46.96
Bradley Palermo
I like the break where they could go to the corner and Dusty could tell Simmons like, all right, just I'm not going to try to impersonate him.
00:52:52.01
Aaron
You got it, baby. Just just keep on the pressure.
00:52:52.87
Bradley Palermo
But yeah. Yeah.
00:52:54.69
Aaron
And then Harley Race just doesn't say anything.
00:52:54.66
Bradley Palermo
But like,
00:52:56.45
Aaron
He just stares at Two out of three falls.
00:52:58.85
Bradley Palermo
because now nowadays it's like when you do a an Ironman match or two out of three falls,
00:53:04.63
Aaron
It just goes right into it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:53:06.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, if you can pin him and then let him go and pin him again, i mean, kind of in theory, right? But you should break it up. You should have a reason where like, okay, they've regained their strength.
00:53:13.17
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:53:15.63
Bradley Palermo
Otherwise, you know, why not just...
00:53:18.91
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:53:29.98
Aaron
I think he like kicked Danielson in the nuts. And so he lost the first fall, but then he pinned Danielson and got the second fall immediately because of the nut shot.
00:53:38.46
Bradley Palermo
Oh, right.
00:53:39.39
Aaron
Like that when they, when you use it, like as part of the, the match, that's cool.
00:53:42.18
Bradley Palermo
When use it for...
00:53:44.56
Aaron
But I agree.
00:53:45.12
Bradley Palermo
Right, use it for your own benefit or you get...
00:53:47.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, same thing, like, I guess so that works really well for DQ. You can hit somebody with a foreign object or do a low blow.
00:53:53.15
Aaron
the And then you, you lose a pin, but you get the pin right back.
00:53:56.75
Bradley Palermo
Right. And in theory, they're pretty injured from that, so...
00:54:01.09
Aaron
Yeah.
00:54:01.32
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, and I mean, these are two like greased up, big ass, muscly ex-football players. So, I mean, it looks like proper fucking wrestling, you know?
00:54:09.24
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:54:12.95
Aaron
Yeah. And Luger again, like I know I said, I didn't think Luger was all that great, but he was good. I like, there was nothing nothing really to complain about. He was selling his back from the first fall for like a pretty long time. And it looked like Simmons was, you know, really going to have an advantage, but then Like Luger ducks out of a, out of the way of a tackle. And then he got the advantage and there's just a good back and forth. It really built up the, the tension and the excitement.
00:54:41.80
Aaron
Um, eventually Harley race grabs Simmons leg and dusty shows up to punch Harley in the face and the crowd loved that. Um, I did not like the second fall, which was,
00:54:53.86
Bradley Palermo
It was like a DQ, right?
00:54:56.66
Aaron
Over the top rope bullshit. Yeah. So Luger Luger wins the second fall because he quote gets thrown over the top rope.
00:54:58.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:55:03.95
Aaron
But basically he,
00:55:05.27
Bradley Palermo
He threw himself off that top rope. Yeah.
00:55:07.49
Aaron
Yeah, like he came he came towards Simmons and Simmons was like ready to basically like throw him over his head. But also it kind of looked like Simmons was going to go over the top rope as well.
00:55:20.76
Aaron
And Harley Race grabbed Simmons tights so he didn't go over the top rope. And so then the ref was like, oh, well that's a DQ. And i was like, oh, my God, this this shit again. Like, this the one thing I didn't like about early 90s WCW.
00:55:34.72
Aaron
Is this like you get disqualified if you get thrown over the top or the person who throws somebody over the top rope gets disqualified like shit's done?
00:55:42.05
Bradley Palermo
Right. At least they didn't have the no jumping off of a rope higher than the second rope at this point, right?
00:55:47.06
Aaron
Oh, my God, that was awful, too.
00:55:48.49
Bradley Palermo
Because that was short-lived, but stupid, stupid rules.
00:55:48.78
Aaron
Yeah.
00:55:52.16
Bradley Palermo
um You know, Luger got busted open at one point. There was some blood there.
00:55:56.98
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know where that came from. Did he? Like, I totally missed it.
00:55:59.30
Bradley Palermo
I don't know.
00:56:00.83
Aaron
But yeah, you just he got a little under his eye or something or around top of his eye.
00:56:04.50
Bradley Palermo
And i like I like that superplex.
00:56:04.73
Aaron
a
00:56:06.37
Bradley Palermo
Always a good move off the top. Was that the top? Yeah.
00:56:09.39
Aaron
Yeah.
00:56:10.28
Bradley Palermo
um It was Simmons superplexed Lex. And so that you know didn't help for the whole back situation Lex was dealing with.
00:56:18.49
Aaron
Yeah, they sold the back thing pretty well.
00:56:19.39
Bradley Palermo
So it was cool.
00:56:20.99
Aaron
um It looked like Simmons, you know, had a real shot. They went out to the outside of the ring and Simmons fatal error. He went for a shoulder tackle on Luger, but Luger got out of the way and Simmons hits his shoulder on the ring post.
00:56:35.96
Aaron
um And this was the downfall of Simmons. Eventually Luger got him in a pile driver and that was the third fall.
00:56:44.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:56:44.22
Aaron
And Luger retains.
00:56:45.69
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. You know, um this kind of set up Ron Simmons for, um you know, where he would go eventually. He didn't win tonight, but within...
00:56:53.45
Aaron
Yeah. He does eventually win the championship, right?
00:56:54.83
Bradley Palermo
then
00:56:56.89
Aaron
Like pretty soon.
00:56:57.34
Bradley Palermo
within the Within a year, he would become the first black champion of WCW.
00:57:01.92
Aaron
Nice. Yeah.
00:57:02.68
Bradley Palermo
A feat only accomplished by, feat only reached by him and Booker T.
00:57:08.40
Aaron
Booker T. Yeah.
00:57:09.91
Bradley Palermo
So smallest black champions. And yeah, they didn't make him, I mean, they certainly made him look good. They let made it look like he got kind of screwed. So yeah.
00:57:16.74
Aaron
Yeah, which which felt appropriate, right? Luger is a bad guy. He's wins through shady means.
00:57:20.77
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:57:23.93
Aaron
um So that was the pay-per-view. um Since it was your choice, what is your grapple grade, sir?
00:57:31.78
Bradley Palermo
Let's see. So uh,
00:57:34.55
Bradley Palermo
yeah, I mean, it was a bizarre mix. It was what I asked for a but bizarre mix of gimmicks and legit good wrestling. Um, particularly like Austin Rhodes, Luger Simmons.
00:57:45.38
Bradley Palermo
Um, I know it's historically remembered for the awful chamber of horrors and Rick Rude's debut. Um, You know, wrestling is always fun for me to watch.
00:57:55.84
Bradley Palermo
I feel like it doesn't get a whole lot worse than this, though, as far as like zooming out. Right. a couple of matches, but we have like 13 them.
00:58:02.31
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:04.45
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:58:05.03
Aaron
Yeah.
00:58:05.15
Bradley Palermo
So so our our our rating system is fast forward, play, rewind, fast forward being boo, play being yay and rewind being, you know, two thumbs up.
00:58:15.09
Bradley Palermo
I think, yeah, I think that's going to be the fast forward. If you really want to see ah the electrocution, like just the ridiculousness of it, you can see the clips there. And, and um yeah, I mean,
00:58:27.65
Bradley Palermo
if you want if you If you just want to know what's up and just see everything like we do, then go ahead and watch it. But I think you could easily find a better pay-per-view, probably an easier Halloween Havoc than a better Halloween Havoc than this.
00:58:39.83
Aaron
Yeah.
00:58:40.34
Bradley Palermo
If you wanted to save yourself a two and a half hours. What do you think, Aaron?
00:58:46.66
Aaron
Yeah. I get, I give it a fast forward as well. um I mean, it had, it had three solid matches. It had a main event that the crowd was invested in that wasn't bad, but it's just like, it just felt like a stinker overall. I mean, the, the bad was bad enough where I was like, yeah, I don't think anyone really needs to watch this. Like,
00:59:05.62
Aaron
you're If you want to see these people, the ones that actually stood the test of time, you can see them in other things. ah You're definitely not missing anything fantastic here. So I give it a fast forward as well.
00:59:17.16
Bradley Palermo
I agree.
00:59:19.66
Aaron
Oh, what did Meltzer give the main event?
00:59:21.58
Bradley Palermo
Oh, we should check that out. He gave it a three, which I, and you know, going by his system, I think he could have done a little bit more than than that on this one.
00:59:28.76
Aaron
Yeah. Maybe like 3.25 or a three and half.
00:59:31.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, he have gone up.
00:59:31.98
Aaron
three and a half
00:59:33.06
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, I mean, you know. um
00:59:35.19
Bradley Palermo
What was it? Cool.
00:59:36.21
Bradley Palermo
As always, if you like what you hear on this episode, you can leave us a review. You can call in 626-657-SLAM.
00:59:46.81
Bradley Palermo
Cut a promo on us. Tell us what we're right about, what we're wrong about, what pay-per-views you've gone to in the past that you'd like us to cover. We're always open to new ideas. We always love to hear from you.
00:59:59.14
Bradley Palermo
And i think at this point, let's see.
01:00:18.87
Bradley Palermo
All right. I got an email here. Danny from Clearwater, Florida. He wrote a big old email. um I will read most of it and paraphrase some of it.
01:00:29.51
Bradley Palermo
Hey, Grapple City Rewind, long time listener. We haven't been on that long, dude. ah Figured it was time to write in. I was actually there live in Daytona Beach for WCW Bash at the Beach in 96.com.
01:00:41.65
Bradley Palermo
And I swear that night changed how I looked at wrestling forever. If you haven't covered it, this one is begging for full GCR deep, deep dive. I know what he's talking about. The whole third man thing.
01:00:53.42
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:00:53.78
Bradley Palermo
He lists the good and the bad. Uh, he says the atmosphere was electric. Everyone was buzzing about the third man. Um, underrow under crowd undercard surprisingly solid. He says there's a Ray Mysterio psychosis match that tore it up.
01:01:07.03
Bradley Palermo
Um, that That's one of those matches you realize late years later was the future of wrestling taking shape in front of you. Production-wise, having it right on the beach gave it such a distinct look.
01:01:17.29
Bradley Palermo
Sunset over the ocean, palm trees swaying, fireworks bursting. Felt like a rock concert more than a wrestling show.
01:01:23.16
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:01:23.63
Bradley Palermo
um said that midcar paid on the bad side, the mid-card pacing was all over the place. A few matches dragged. and that it was hard to see because the way that it was set up when he was in the crowd um but he says this one defined the era shift and it's the night wrestling turned edgy unpredictable um between the atmosphere the work rate of ray and psychosis and the sheer shock of hogan dropping the leg this is gcr gold keep up the killer work fellas um dan from clearwater a proud member of the grapple gang he said
01:01:54.94
Aaron
Nice.
01:01:54.87
Bradley Palermo
um
01:01:55.18
Aaron
Thanks, Dan.
01:01:56.46
Bradley Palermo
thanks Dan yeah I know this one I've seen it quite a few times um I do like how we've you know managed to not see Hulk Hogan in a while you know
01:02:05.88
Aaron
Yeah.
01:02:09.65
Bradley Palermo
but maybe but you can't avoid him for too long so I uh yeah I'm not I'm not opposed I mean you know like I said I kind of like to watch uh like the summer stuff in the summer but I'm we'll add to this and I'm sure we'll we'll get to it um
01:02:11.08
Aaron
Yeah,
01:02:20.56
Aaron
yeah we'll add it to the list. We'll definitely cover it.
01:02:24.28
Bradley Palermo
you know, we'll get to them all eventually. Shit. We were, uh, we're 21 in and probably only what few thousand left.
01:02:31.58
Aaron
Yeah.
01:02:31.84
Bradley Palermo
Peacock doesn't cut us off anytime soon.
01:02:33.58
Aaron
Hopefully.
01:02:34.72
Bradley Palermo
Um, yeah, well that's all the time we have for today. Did I cover all the segments?
01:02:39.15
Aaron
We got to tell them what we're going to watch next.
01:02:40.100
Bradley Palermo
Oh, shit. So this one was my call. That would make the next one your call. Aaron, have you decided what we're going to watch for the next episode?
01:02:50.84
Aaron
I have. I have. And I've caved to your peer pressure. I'm picking an October pay-per-view since it is the month of October.
01:02:57.28
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yes.
01:02:59.78
Aaron
We're going to watch No Mercy 2001.
01:03:04.69
Aaron
Yes, sir. Thank you, Rick. ah Rick is not in this, but he's he's there in spirit. this um This has a lot of notable names. We've got the main event is a Stone Cold versus Kurt Angle versus Rob Van Dam in a triple threat match.
01:03:19.38
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.
01:03:20.99
Aaron
We got Jericho versus The Rock, Undertaker versus Booker T. Yep. Yep. ah Let's see the Hardy Boys against Lance Storm and the Hurricane Edge versus Christian ah APA versus Chris Canyon and Hugh Morris.
01:03:35.06
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's...
01:03:38.42
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.
01:03:43.53
Aaron
I don't know who Hugh Morris is, but this is the era where it was like WWF against WCW slash ECW.
01:03:45.31
Bradley Palermo
Uh-uh.
01:03:52.44
Aaron
They were called the Alliance.
01:03:54.54
Bradley Palermo
oh it's like right after they kind of bought everything and they were trying to ah play on that
01:03:55.82
Aaron
So yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. So um got the Dudley boys got Kane.
01:04:07.47
Aaron
Billy Kidman is in this one who haven't seen in a while.
01:04:09.75
Bradley Palermo
yeah i don't know what that one was for
01:04:10.58
Aaron
Actually, at ah is that a oh, it was on Sunday Night Heat. Never mind.
01:04:17.95
Aaron
ah Just for the shits and gigs. Yeah, so it's ah it's a fun one. It's an October one. ah People seem to like it. They think it's, the internet says it's one of the better October pay-per-views for WWF.
01:04:29.92
Aaron
So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
01:04:32.58
Bradley Palermo
All right. That's all the time we got for now. don't forget to give, give us a call. 626-657-SLAM. You can always email us your thoughts and suggestions. We're grapple city pod gmail.com.
01:04:43.65
Bradley Palermo
We are also grapple city pod on Tik TOK, on Instagram, on X and threads and all that stuff. We're probably more on Instagram than anything else, but we always love to hear from you.
01:04:55.27
Bradley Palermo
And I, um,
01:04:57.09
Bradley Palermo
That's all I got for now. So I guess we will see you guys in a week or so.
01:05:00.24
Aaron
Yes, we'll catch you in the cheap seats. Bye, all.
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