You Don’t Have the Stroke - WCW Halloween Havoc 1997 Artwork

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Grapple City Rewind

You Don’t Have the Stroke - WCW Halloween Havoc 1997

October 20, 2025 • Season 1 • Episode 23

This week on Grapple City Rewind, Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink crack open a Slim Jim and dive deep into WCW Halloween Havoc 1997 — live from Las Vegas, baby. From Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero’s all-time classic mask vs. title match to the absolute garbage that follows, this show has it all: Hogan vs. Piper inside the flimsiest cage ever built, Mongo’s missing Super Bowl ring, and the golden era of Dusty Rhodes one-liners. Plus, the guys talk TNA Bound for Glory, AEW WrestleDream, and why 1997 WCW felt like it was booked by a man on three Red Bulls and a Slim Jim. Was this really the night pro wrestling changed forever? We'll let you know.

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

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Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

00:00:00.25
Aaron
Hey everyone, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, make sure to subscribe with whatever podcast platform you use so you never miss an episode. Also, be sure to check out our back catalog of 20 plus episodes.

00:00:24.36
Bradley Palermo
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.

00:00:34.71
Bradley Palermo
On this episode, we are revisiting WCW's pay-per-view known as hollywood Halloween Havoc.

00:00:44.42
Bradley Palermo
The event took place in Las Vegas and it promised to quote unquote change wrestling forever. Or actually it said tonight wrestling will change forever.

00:00:57.69
Bradley Palermo
Will it change wrestling forever or will it just forever change how Aaron and I feel about watching so much goddamn wrestling?

00:01:06.12
Aaron
Yeah.

00:01:06.65
Bradley Palermo
Only time will tell in the rewind, but

00:01:08.34
Aaron
yeah

00:01:09.62
Bradley Palermo
Before we get into all of the havoc that is Halloween Havoc I'm Bradley Palermo, as always, with Aaron Fink. And Aaron, there was there's been a couple pay-per-views of modern day that have happened um since we've spoken last.

00:01:24.43
Bradley Palermo
So maybe we should touch on those a little bit. Maybe first, last week, Bound for Glory by TNA.

00:01:27.22
Aaron
Yeah.

00:01:31.04
Bradley Palermo
What'd you think of that one, man?

00:01:32.38
Aaron
I enjoyed it quite a bit. um there' you know There's always one or two matches that I'm like, meh. But I would say overall, ah pretty much every match was solid.

00:01:39.04
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:01:43.08
Aaron
My favorites... um I think it probably goes without saying to anyone who saw ah Leon Slater versus Javon Evans, which was ah for the TNA X division championship.

00:01:47.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:01:52.00
Bradley Palermo
For sure.

00:01:55.72
Aaron
This match Probably match of the year contender. I mean, these two guys are so young, so talented, both crazy high flyers.

00:02:05.48
Aaron
I have seen them both wrestle before, but I think putting them together made for a very special match. The crowd was obviously a big part of why this felt great because they were super into it as well.

00:02:19.39
Aaron
But a super solid match. Highly recommend I would say The only thing that you could ding this match for was how it ended. i won't give it away just in case there's somebody who wants to go back and watch it.

00:02:31.99
Aaron
But yeah, this match was spectacular.

00:02:34.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was a bad finish. And I had spoken to you off the air about this, but it doesn't really matter because everything that happened before that. Hey, I'd never even seen Leon or Javon to my knowledge before.

00:02:47.63
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:02:48.11
Bradley Palermo
ah Leon Slater, of course.

00:02:51.44
Bradley Palermo
TNA, Javon Evans, NXT. And these guys are fucking nuts. And I'm not like the most like high flyer, like fan number one you know i'm pretty like traditional what i like but this was just the back and forth and how natural they were just damn and we probably get to see these guys for like 20 more years plus right there's their babies yeah right

00:03:00.39
Aaron
here

00:03:09.72
Aaron
yeah that's the crazy thing yeah like that they're just starting out i think think they're both 20 or 21 so yeah as you said many many more years uh Highly recommend the match to anybody who did not check it out.

00:03:23.39
Aaron
um And yeah, the no, no you I'm assuming you were going to talk about the other matches that we both liked.

00:03:24.32
Bradley Palermo
but also so sorry

00:03:31.45
Aaron
I personally really enjoyed the final table match between the Hardys and Team 3D, otherwise known as the Dudley Boys.

00:03:40.85
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:03:41.51
Aaron
And, you know, for a match between a bunch of guys in their late 40s and early with Team with Honestly, not a ton of wrestling per se I thought it was really good.

00:03:53.58
Aaron
it it It was very emotionally charged. I felt like you could always feel what the guys were feeling because, you know, to anyone who's listening to this episode and has listened to previous episodes, we've covered these two teams in a tables match semi-recently at the Royal Rumble 2000.

00:04:10.70
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

00:04:11.94
Aaron
And so they've been wrestling each other for about 25 years on and off. And they both would not be the teams that are held in such high regard as they are without one another. So this was a, an emotional match.

00:04:27.03
Aaron
ah Also won't give the finish away, but yeah, it was, you know, I got choked up a little bit at the end and not, not that I have any real emotional connection to these guys beyond seeing them as wrestlers, but I felt things. This thing made me feel things.

00:04:41.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you know, it was worth the money for the pay-per-view. was for the for these two matches, so the Leon Slater one and then the Dudleys and the Hardys. And um I, yeah, I liked it.

00:04:53.19
Bradley Palermo
It was emotional. It wasn't about the wrestling. It was about it being the time.

00:04:56.17
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:04:57.64
Bradley Palermo
And I just thought it was funny because, of course, like, Bubba Ray Dudley, also known as Bully, is always on the radio on XM talking about pro wrestling day in, day night, day in and day out.

00:05:11.20
Bradley Palermo
And he gave it a rating, his own match of five stars. So I just he said it was an instant five star classic, which, you know, got some heat online, I think. But But it was was for the story.

00:05:24.45
Aaron
Yeah.

00:05:26.38
Bradley Palermo
And he said, you know, fuck you guys if you don't... I'm paraphrasing, but if you don't think it was five stars, he's like, it's about what happened in the building. And in the building, you know, people were freaking the fuck out.

00:05:34.38
Aaron
Yeah.

00:05:36.85
Bradley Palermo
And it was it was cool. I mean, there were some spots there, like, that... didn't hit that hard. Like they put out two chairs under the swanton or no, two tables under the swanton.

00:05:46.78
Bradley Palermo
So Jeff didn't have to like land on Bubba, but like you could.

00:05:53.37
Bradley Palermo
All right. So they definitely,

00:05:56.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you know, there were some things, but I mean, it's pro wrestling. There's always things. and And if you could feel something out of a match, that's probably the most important thing. So I was excited to see it for those two.

00:06:05.67
Aaron
Yeah.

00:06:06.73
Bradley Palermo
For for everything else, it was it was like there were some cool things. There were some things that weren't. I skip the matches nowadays. now We watch so much wrestling that I'm not interested in. But yeah.

00:06:15.26
Aaron
Yeah.

00:06:15.99
Bradley Palermo
But i I mean, I did watch this like 10 man mixed gender thing. And that was, that had its moments too. I was, I was, I mean, I had a fun time with it. um Was there, a

00:06:26.41
Aaron
There was a world championship match that was pretty good too.

00:06:27.85
Bradley Palermo
yeah, Santana. Yeah.

00:06:29.44
Aaron
Santana against Trick Williams. Yeah.

00:06:31.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that was cool.

00:06:31.50
Aaron
Another pretty solid match. You know, the they had been feuding for a while. For those who don't know, Trick Williams is a member of NXT, which is a WWE wwe property.

00:06:41.85
Aaron
ah Mike Santana is a TNA wrestler and trick Williams had won TNA world championship a few months ago, not from Santana, but, you know, had held it and he's a heel. He's a bad guy you know, basically, you doing whatever he wants, not showing up to TNA appearances when he's supposed to. So the story going into this was that somebody needed to take the championship back for TNA.

00:07:08.00
Aaron
And I believe that these two wrestled each other a couple months ago in New York, which is Santana's home state, and he couldn't get the job done. So um this was Santana's redemption. And there are some people who would say,

00:07:22.14
Aaron
that maybe he should have won it back then in New York because you know the crowd was very much behind him, but they were behind him here too. So I thought it was a great match. Again, once once the match was over, I didn't really love what happened after that. I thought it was a little...

00:07:38.42
Aaron
strange and and unnecessary you know like he sent santana i'll spoil it santana beat trick uh he didn't really get a chance to like celebrate until after this like sort of tomfoolery happened it kind of took me out of it but you know these are like minor gripes this is me just complaining but overall i thought that was a really fun show and then Talking about current product again, ah yesterday was WrestleDream, AEW's pay-per-view.

00:08:05.62
Aaron
And I know that we both watched this. What did you think of WrestleDream?

00:08:09.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Um, let me pull up wrestle dream really quick so I can have something to look at.

00:08:15.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. so the main event on this was not really the title match, which was versus the title match was world champion hangman on page versus Samoa Joe.

00:08:31.27
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:33.20
Bradley Palermo
um Okay, so I think we're going to have to get to the main event in a minute, which was Mox and Darby Allin.

00:08:40.56
Aaron
Yeah,

00:08:42.01
Bradley Palermo
But I just want to say, like, my favorite, I think... ah Well, I guess what I was most excited about was Chris Statlander versus Tony Storm. But, like... it's weird because I'm a huge fan of both of those women.

00:08:53.61
Aaron
yeah i me too.

00:08:53.73
Bradley Palermo
i just think they're excellent wrestlers. And I really didn't know who to fucking root for, which was kind of, kind of a weird place to be in, but it was so cool to see them together. And they were doing it as two baby faces and respectfully of each other. I'm just some shit talk, but I didn't really love how Chris just pummeled Tony the entire time. Like,

00:09:14.62
Bradley Palermo
Tony got no shine in that and ah and the match, really. you know It's like, yeah.

00:09:18.24
Aaron
It felt a little one-sided. Yeah, it was it was interesting. I think the crowd was also unsure about who to cheer for. And that can happen sometimes when you have two baby faces up against each other.

00:09:28.48
Bradley Palermo
and I think it's tough, and I think it's kind of... um

00:09:34.31
Bradley Palermo
and You almost have to switch one heel just for the match.

00:09:38.43
Aaron
The match. Yeah.

00:09:39.52
Bradley Palermo
Which you can kind of do. You can have someone kind of be a little more piss and vinegar and just be kind of like...

00:09:43.55
Aaron
yeah

00:09:44.72
Bradley Palermo
And the Indies do that all the time. like

00:09:46.62
Aaron
Yeah.

00:09:46.59
Bradley Palermo
Everyone loves both people, but then they let you know kind of who is a little bit more of the asshole in this moment, right?

00:09:52.81
Aaron
Yeah. They do it in WWE sometimes too.

00:09:53.33
Bradley Palermo
But...

00:09:55.13
Aaron
that the The seasoned wrestlers certainly do.

00:09:57.40
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it was kind of sad to see Tony just get stomped on, but I don't know. I still love to see those two. i was excited.

00:10:05.75
Aaron
Yeah, it's good match.

00:10:05.87
Bradley Palermo
um It wasn't like their best matches, but it was solid. And my friends, shout out to my friends, Peter and Kelsey, who were in the audience. I kept taking, they were on the hard cam. So I kept taking pictures of them in the audience and sending it to them while they were there. And Kelsey got a, um she got a, some FaceTime of her being grossed out.

00:10:24.100
Bradley Palermo
ah visibly repulsed on camera in the next match. Probably because she was, like Peter said, probably the only woman in the room. So they decided to put the camera on her, but it was very, you know, as it is, you know, very male dominated room, but, um but yeah, hang man versus, ah i mean, I'm sorry, Moxley versus Darby Allen.

00:10:34.90
Aaron
Yeah.

00:10:46.39
Bradley Palermo
We've seen this before in other stipulations. This was, I would say ah death match. It was a I quit match, but it was very um creative.

00:10:54.05
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:10:56.34
Bradley Palermo
You know, there was i think the first time I've ever seen someone given like essentially like a fish tank swirly, you know, like held his face under the water.

00:11:06.55
Bradley Palermo
um sting made an appearance there were that was kind of cool he's got gray long gray hair and a long gray goatee with some black dye down the middle um

00:11:09.85
Aaron
yeah

00:11:17.87
Aaron
Fish tank swirly. I mean, they tried to drown him, Brad. he was He was being drowned.

00:11:23.05
Bradley Palermo
i mean when you drown someone in a toilet it's it's swirly right yeah right

00:11:26.87
Aaron
It's a swirly. I know. ah Well, but i was that the part that she was? No, she must have been grossed out by the skewer up the fingernail.

00:11:35.74
Bradley Palermo
That's what it was. It was her face with the...

00:11:36.75
Aaron
Yeah, that shit. i i was I was screaming in bed as I was watching it. I won't i won't mirror my screen, but I was just, oh!

00:11:42.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. ah you Did you see her on ah the screen the first time? or just when i Yeah, it's funny.

00:11:48.54
Aaron
Yeah, I guess I did, yeah. I just didn't realize that it was her.

00:11:51.80
Bradley Palermo
She was making the perfect face for it. I mean, just like, oh like hands over the eye, like pulling down the eyelids. Like... ah

00:11:59.04
Aaron
Yeah, nobody wants to get bamboo shoots stuck under their fingernails. That shit's insane.

00:12:03.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that was funny. I mean, I i was like, i said good I go and I sit in like the second row and shit and like they barely get me.

00:12:10.36
Aaron
You get blood on you.

00:12:11.71
Bradley Palermo
But she's like she's like in like <unk> like pretty close though, like sixth row or something. But but i was like, how you got fucking FaceTime in the audience. Like only like one person, maybe a couple kids get that, you know, it's pretty cool.

00:12:22.28
Aaron
yeah You just have to be shocked.

00:12:24.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm just i was so i was just so stoked to see that. It was hilarious. But I mean, there's so much obviously on an AEW pay-per-view to talk about.

00:12:33.29
Aaron
Yeah.

00:12:33.43
Bradley Palermo
Like, we're not going to get to all of it, but but.

00:12:35.32
Aaron
No.

00:12:35.77
Bradley Palermo
um

00:12:36.72
Aaron
i I'll tell you my other favorite match. um

00:12:38.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:12:39.09
Aaron
Kyle Fletcher versus Mark Briscoe ah for the TNT Championship.

00:12:41.61
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

00:12:43.04
Aaron
That match, super good. I think a lot of it has to do with Kyle Fletcher, who is very tall, very beefy, and getting better and better as the months go by.

00:12:54.14
Aaron
Not that he was ever bad, but I think... In the last six months in particular, he's gotten really good, just knows how to get heat, makes his stuff look real snug and and intense and real.

00:13:00.73
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:13:06.14
Aaron
um It had an incredible false finish where you know I think he think he low-blowed Mark Briscoe and then hit him with like a big old brain buster. and You're like, oh shit, that's that's the three. and and Briscoe kicked out and crowd went wild. It was great.

00:13:22.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um Briscoe never wins, right? Just loses everywhere he goes.

00:13:25.71
Aaron
I think he beat MJF in that tax match a month ago. Didn't he?

00:13:30.18
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:13:30.66
Aaron
thank you think he did.

00:13:32.31
Bradley Palermo
Really?

00:13:33.09
Aaron
i think so.

00:13:34.34
Bradley Palermo
beat MJF in that?

00:13:36.08
Bradley Palermo
um

00:13:37.04
Aaron
i don't know. MJF can take a loss. I'm pretty sure he did. Now I got to look it up.

00:13:40.76
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:13:40.94
Aaron
Now you got me doubting myself. Is that all in

00:13:42.57
Bradley Palermo
He never wins, dude. He lost he loses everything. ah wait, you're right.

00:13:46.33
Aaron
No, it wasn't all in. It was all out. It was all out. Yeah. He won. He won.

00:13:49.74
Bradley Palermo
um i dont don't know.

00:13:51.32
Bradley Palermo
Mark Briscoe beats MJF in a table.

00:13:51.46
Aaron
Yeah.

00:13:53.52
Bradley Palermo
All right. I stand corrected. Mark Briscoe does win sometimes.

00:13:57.84
Aaron
He needed it. I mean, i think they had probably wrestled a few times and he had not won.

00:13:59.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. and

00:14:02.52
Aaron
So.

00:14:02.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And the crowd, I mean, they fucking love him, especially and my hometown of St. Louis. You know, we tend to be.

00:14:08.46
Aaron
Yeah. And ever since his brother passed away too, he's been super over with the crowd.

00:14:12.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. We've got a lot of dudes walking around that look like Mark Briscoe where I'm from. Yeah.

00:14:17.34
Aaron
there with teeth missing and lots of tattoos.

00:14:20.71
Bradley Palermo
ah their kids tattooed he's got like all like 13 of his children tattooed him all the boys start names start with M so it's like all of them start with M's he's like I guess we yeah

00:14:26.39
Aaron
Yeah. No, I think all of them start with them. Like, I think those are all of his kids. Yeah. On his, on his rib cage. You know, what's funny is like when he's not wrestling, he does kind of still have that accent, but not entirely.

00:14:44.28
Aaron
Like he's definitely putting, he's not as much of a redneck as he pretends to be.

00:14:44.92
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:14:48.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think it's something you can kind of fall into. Like, I i didn't really – I wasn't really raised speaking, like, too rural, but i have family members that do.

00:14:55.93
Aaron
With the twang. Mm-hmm.

00:15:00.01
Bradley Palermo
And so I was – and then when I get around them, i can go in I can go into an accent that's kind of close to what he does, like, accidentally just from, like, who I'm around, right?

00:15:03.26
Aaron
It comes out.

00:15:09.82
Aaron
Yeah.

00:15:10.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. and then And then when I'm not there, it's like, no, dude, it's is whatever.

00:15:14.48
Aaron
You're back with West Coast bro.

00:15:14.85
Bradley Palermo
It's fucking raised in the suburbs.

00:15:16.91
Aaron
Dude.

00:15:16.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, right? But he seems... Have you ever seen that clip of Mark Briscoe doing the weather in some like local news station?

00:15:24.31
Aaron
Yeah, I have.

00:15:25.59
Bradley Palermo
He is fucking funny. I mean, that guy should be a character like bit actor

00:15:27.36
Aaron
He's funny.

00:15:32.53
Bradley Palermo
on movies like they should like he's he's fucking funny i mean you just put him in something for a second he can be the hitchhiker or something weird like a like a steve buscemi type early career type weird thing you could put him in like he's funny yeah oh dude that that'd be a great idea um should we get into the rewind cool

00:15:44.08
Aaron
Yeah. Put them in heels season three, if there ever is one.

00:15:51.86
Aaron
Let's do it.

00:15:58.06
Bradley Palermo
All right, so we're going back to October 26, 1997 in the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada for WCW's Halloween Havoc 1997.

00:16:11.10
Bradley Palermo
nineteen ninety s seven We're talking Roddy Piper versus Hollywood Hogan in the opening package. Hogan is NWO.

00:16:20.93
Bradley Palermo
Piper is baby face, which is different than some things we'd seen, you know, back in the 80s with these two.

00:16:26.80
Aaron
yeah

00:16:27.61
Bradley Palermo
Although they've gone at it many, many times. Hogan in the opening set on the opening package claims he's a god in the ring.

00:16:38.45
Bradley Palermo
What happened there?

00:16:39.76
Aaron
Cut out.

00:16:43.68
Bradley Palermo
tonight him and Piper are going to enter into some sort of thing that resembles a cage match. Um, commentary.

00:16:52.14
Aaron
flimsy as cage ever.

00:16:53.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Commentary. Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, Bobby Heenan. Dusty's funny. Um,

00:17:01.52
Aaron
Yeah.

00:17:17.38
Aaron
Yep.

00:17:20.36
Bradley Palermo
Slim Jim shit everywhere, all over the ring. It's called the Slim Jim Hollywood Havoc. Everyone's eating their beef sticks and getting ready for some wrestling. And match number one was... Actually, why don't you introduce it, Aaron? Because I cannot pronounce Japanese names I'm learning from this show.

00:17:37.79
Aaron
okay Yeah, sure. First match, Yuji Nagata with Sonny Ono in his corner versus Ultimo Dragon. um Ultimo Dragon was a was ah one of my favorites as a kid. I think it was probably just because he was a fast-paced cruiserweight. He had very bright colors and his mask was pretty cool. um Did you know that Ultimo Dragon, and they mentioned this in commentary, he had nine different belts at one time.

00:18:04.55
Aaron
And I thought this was really interesting because the other day while we were watching WrestleDream, I heard Excalibur call Mercedes Monet calling her like I heard him say that Mercedes Monet is now calling herself Ultimo Monet because she has so many belts.

00:18:20.64
Bradley Palermo
Oh, really? That's funny. i didn't, I missed that part.

00:18:25.84
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know why she I didn't don know why she just didn't say Ultimo Monet.

00:18:25.99
Bradley Palermo
Ultimo.

00:18:29.22
Aaron
That would have been funnier, man.

00:18:29.30
Bradley Palermo
i was i was in like a kind of like a Spanish kick on this episode. There's a lot of things I was thinking about because I've just been playing with Duolingo now for like a thousand days.

00:18:41.30
Bradley Palermo
And I was like, oh, he's called the final dragon.

00:18:43.21
Aaron
Ultimate dragon. Yeah.

00:18:44.64
Bradley Palermo
Well, ultimate, I guess, but like also it can mean like the last dragon, right?

00:18:47.49
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:18:49.01
Bradley Palermo
um But that's funny about him and Monet. that's That's kind of her like digging for a deep cut there.

00:18:55.62
Aaron
yeah Well, I mean, she's got 11 belts now.

00:18:56.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:18:58.18
Aaron
Jesus. So many.

00:18:58.88
Bradley Palermo
Which is a great way to sort of put over a star without without like a real like championship title. It's like, well, you don't have a world title, right? That's what I mean. I guess not championship, but world.

00:19:09.75
Bradley Palermo
You don't have a world title, but you have like all of these bullshit indie titles.

00:19:09.88
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:14.15
Bradley Palermo
like We should send her the fucking Grapple City Rewind belt.

00:19:18.66
Aaron
And she'll be 12 belts, Monet. Yeah.

00:19:20.71
Bradley Palermo
way fucking cooler than most of her belts um but yes um what were your thoughts on this one i thought personally this was the second batch second best match of the evening

00:19:25.43
Aaron
yeah

00:19:33.82
Aaron
Yeah, I agree. um I, as I said, I was a big fan of Ultimo Dragon when I was younger. um i always thought it was really interesting. Like Ultimo Dragon is dressed up like a luchador. He's got a mask.

00:19:47.85
Aaron
He was born in Japan and trained in Japan, but he also trained in Mexico. So he's well versed in lucha libre. Very interesting that there's like that this dichotomy living inside of him. But I

00:19:59.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:20:00.27
Aaron
i I, I thought the match was great. Uh, super fast paced, super hard hitting when it needed to be, lots of like high flying twirly shit. Um, I actually was not, I don't think I've ever seen a Eugene Nagata match before, but I, I obviously, when I looked him up, I was like, Oh wow, very accomplished dude. Um, he was one of the longest reigning IWGP heavyweight champions. I think he had like the fifth longest reign of all time.

00:20:26.20
Aaron
And, um, Yeah, it was ah pretty short, but entertaining. And um Nagata had targeted Ultimo Dragon's arm. I think he like dragged it over the turnbuckle thing, you know the metal thing that holds it to the ring post. And from then on was kind of just targeting the arm, and he he ended up getting Dragon to submit with some sort of arm bar.

00:20:49.60
Aaron
um And I guess... Sonny Ono, the story they were trying to tell was that Sonny Ono had hired Yuji Nagata as like a hitman of sorts to take out Ultimo Dragon. So ah as usual, WCW is really, really good with the undercard, luchador, cruiserweight, midcard stuff.

00:21:07.88
Aaron
And this is no exception to that. was solid. it was solid

00:21:11.62
Bradley Palermo
Would you call what Yuji was doing? um That's like strong style, right?

00:21:16.63
Aaron
Yeah, I guess so. Definitely remind, I mean, it you know, Japanese style, read this whole book about Japanese wrestling and, and by, by the nineties, that was essentially what most people were doing is like that mix of amateur martial arts and holds and strikes. um Yeah, it, it definitely felt like kind of like a Shinsuke Nakamura type match, you know?

00:21:36.27
Bradley Palermo
I mean, when

00:21:39.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, like when he, because of the kick pads or whatever, when it it almost seemed unfair because when Ultimo kicked, you know, there was daylight between him and the kick for the safety of Yuji.

00:21:42.26
Aaron
Yeah.

00:21:48.77
Aaron
Yeah.

00:21:50.39
Bradley Palermo
But when Yuji kicked with those kick pads, for full fucking like slap sound.

00:21:54.42
Aaron
He's kicking the shit out out of him.

00:21:55.53
Bradley Palermo
hello

00:21:55.79
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:56.38
Bradley Palermo
pop And I was like, well, that's not fair. He's really fucking kicking them.

00:21:58.77
Aaron
yeah

00:21:59.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:22:00.13
Aaron
I think Dragon got a few real kicks in, but not very many.

00:22:03.22
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was crazy. i Those stiff kicks were... I mean, the first time I saw that in the indies where someone has like the kick pads and they do the stiff kicks, I was like, whoa, fuck. like I thought everything was fucking going to be fake.

00:22:12.53
Aaron
ah Yeah.

00:22:14.27
Bradley Palermo
and It's like punching someone with a boxing glove, right? I mean, I don't know all the tricks, but for me watching, it it's kind of cool.

00:22:22.66
Aaron
It felt real.

00:22:22.64
Bradley Palermo
um We see like Lucha versus like the Japanese style all the time and in AEW, but... but on this show watching like retro American promotions.

00:22:34.96
Bradley Palermo
um I mean, we see it, but it's, this is kind of like an early version of it.

00:22:39.36
Aaron
Yeah, it's kind of uncommon.

00:22:39.49
Bradley Palermo
I think.

00:22:40.68
Aaron
um

00:22:40.87
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:22:41.73
Aaron
The other interesting thing about this match is like right in the middle of it, Raven showed up ah with his crew. i don't know. I don't think they were calling it Raven's Flock.

00:22:52.08
Aaron
I think that was ECW's name for him. But ah I think I saw Billy Kidman, Stevie Richards, and Perry Saturn. I remember all those guys as a kid.

00:23:00.44
Bradley Palermo
Nice. Yeah.

00:23:01.82
Aaron
So... um They were there for the whole show, but they didn't do anything.

00:23:06.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:23:06.86
Aaron
They just held up signs and sat with the fans.

00:23:08.87
Bradley Palermo
Well, this ah show is very confused. I mean, clearly there wasn't like a one level-headed person putting this whole thing together. But i I also wanted to say, I know we're hanging out on the first match still for a long time, but I kind of went down like a rabbit hole about the Frankensteiner because when Ultimo does the Frankensteiner,

00:23:29.32
Bradley Palermo
or when he does the hurricane Rana, they call it a Frankensteiner.

00:23:32.69
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:23:33.13
Bradley Palermo
Um, and I was like, you know, I guess it is a Frankensteiner cause it's their version of it. But like, but I was thinking like, where, where did like the hurricane Rana come from?

00:23:42.28
Bradley Palermo
And then I realized It's from this dude, Hurricane Ramirez. So like Hurricane Ramirez. Have you ever heard of him? I guess he was like a really big deal Mexican wrestler like back in, I don't know which decade, but before the TV era.

00:23:56.89
Bradley Palermo
And... his move was Hurricane Rana. So the frog hurricane. as And yeah, I mean, you know, the American style kind of changed it a little bit and started calling it like the Frankensteiner um when they do the Steiner Brothers version of it.

00:24:14.49
Bradley Palermo
But I never thought, I mean, I know I told you already, but I never really dawned on me that like, um,

00:24:15.24
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:20.72
Bradley Palermo
Hurricane Rana. ah What is that? why are you saying Hurricane Rome? Oh, it's Spanish for her frog hurricane. And why?

00:24:28.24
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:28.91
Bradley Palermo
Okay, because of Hurricane Ramirez.

00:24:29.78
Aaron
Yeah. Well, now we know. Yeah.

00:24:31.63
Bradley Palermo
know I learned something solid opener. You know, it set a strong tone that really wasn't capitalized on later. um

00:24:39.83
Aaron
That's true. it did not It did not maintain this level of excitement throughout the show.

00:24:44.59
Bradley Palermo
No. so So the next match, which I always think is ridiculous, is a bonus match. A bonus match should be like before the cameras go on or like after it's over.

00:24:52.05
Aaron
Right.

00:24:53.97
Bradley Palermo
Somehow, you know, it feels like a bonus.

00:24:55.46
Aaron
Somehow we get a bonus match for match number two.

00:24:56.49
Bradley Palermo
This is match two, bro. And it's it's ah Ghetto, G-E-D-O versus Chris Jericho, Lionheart Chris Jericho, nonetheless, which I was...

00:24:58.71
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:01.12
Aaron
Get him

00:25:06.63
Aaron
him.

00:25:14.31
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:14.51
Bradley Palermo
Oh, by the way, Meltzer gave a 3.75 on the last match, if anyone cared.

00:25:14.59
Aaron
Oh.

00:25:18.56
Aaron
Nice.

00:25:19.66
Bradley Palermo
Pro Wrestling Observer.

00:25:19.81
Aaron
Nice. I care. I care. Even though Meltzer can be silly sometimes. Did you notice in this ghetto versus Chris Jericho match that they use Jericho's WWF music? They overdubbed it.

00:25:32.68
Bradley Palermo
Oh, I, you know, it dawned on me. I was like, this seems early for this song to be on there.

00:25:36.85
Aaron
Break the walls down. Yeah, that's that's his WWF theme.

00:25:38.79
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:25:42.08
Aaron
Definitely an overdub, a stupid overdub if you know anything about wrestling. And I guess I looked it up. His song for WCW was like a blatant rip off of a Pearl Jam song and they couldn't get the rights for it when they bought the catalog.

00:25:55.75
Aaron
So they just they just decided to use as his his WWF theme.

00:25:56.19
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.

00:26:00.51
Aaron
Pretty silly.

00:26:00.86
Bradley Palermo
Damn, yeah.

00:26:10.14
Aaron
He is rotunded.

00:26:10.42
Bradley Palermo
Like, if everyone... Yeah, and he's wearing a belly shirt, so the entire belly is out. But I mean, he has no muscle. He's like... He's like not the biggest guy on the planet, but he has zero muscles, just weird flab and weird places.

00:26:25.18
Bradley Palermo
Like if anyone ever wondered if, you know, they were able, if anyone can become a pro wrestler, um i don't know. This guy got in the ring with Chris Jericho somehow looking like that.

00:26:36.79
Aaron
Yeah.

00:26:37.92
Bradley Palermo
And there's, I don't, there's really nothing he did to be like, well, fuck, at least he can go. i don't know about that.

00:26:43.68
Aaron
Yeah. I think overall it was a good showing for Jericho. It was not as good as the match we saw last week with, with Chris rock against, or I'm sorry, Chris Jericho against the rock. um But, but still entertaining very quick.

00:26:56.67
Aaron
Like you said, I think Jericho won with his lion tamer is what they called it back then.

00:27:01.34
Bradley Palermo
which which now we call the walls of Jericho, right?

00:27:04.88
Aaron
Yep.

00:27:05.74
Bradley Palermo
um There was like a ah top rope, super Frankensteiner, speaking of Frankensteiners.

00:27:10.92
Aaron
Yeah, that they botched the hell out of.

00:27:12.70
Bradley Palermo
ah Yeah, I was going to ask you, because they were trying to be like, well, I don't think he got all of it. And I'm like, well, I think he, I think, yeah, he blocked it.

00:27:18.87
Aaron
He blocked it.

00:27:21.72
Bradley Palermo
I'm like, no, dude, I think they just botched the fuck out of it.

00:27:24.34
Aaron
Yeah, no, the ghetto completely botched It it was yeah, that that was the commentary doing their their normal.

00:27:24.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:31.10
Aaron
Well, let's cover for this terrible mistake that we're now showing the replay of twice.

00:27:36.23
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. you know Yeah. Why did you show it to us again? I was like doubling down when you make a mistake, I guess that's what that was.

00:27:40.100
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know.

00:27:43.42
Bradley Palermo
But, but, uh, the third match was, Oh shit. I said that, that the first match was the second best match. Well, yeah, this would be the best match of the night.

00:27:52.49
Bradley Palermo
So I stand by that. This was matched. Um, this was what some people say is like the best match of all time. I'm going to go and say like, you know,

00:27:59.92
Aaron
Probably one of the best WCW matches or maybe one of the best matches of the ninety s

00:28:02.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:28:04.77
Bradley Palermo
For certainly, I mean, we see, well, I'm not going to take anything away from it. It's Eddie Guerrero versus Ray Mysterio Jr. cruiserweight title versus mask match.

00:28:14.40
Bradley Palermo
They come out a hundred miles an hour.

00:28:17.40
Aaron
who

00:28:18.09
Bradley Palermo
Um,

00:28:18.77
Aaron
Eddie sucks chance right off the bat. Eddie is very clearly the heel and the crowd hates him.

00:28:23.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Ray's like, I don't know. There's some spots in here that are, that you still don't really see.

00:28:28.94
Aaron
Yeah.

00:28:28.90
Bradley Palermo
There's like a springboard backflip DDT. That's pretty crazy. um

00:28:34.12
Aaron
There's so much crazy shit in this match. I feel like this is a perfect match. I don't think I saw a single thing that went wrong, even when there was a move where you were like, ooh, maybe they didn't get all of that, but then they somehow managed to like make it look perfect, make it look seamless. There was a I think Ray jumped over the top rope and like went for a hurricane Rana on the floor.

00:28:56.27
Aaron
And it looked like he was going to like slam Eddie's head into the frigging concrete, but Eddie manages to roll at the last second. Like,

00:29:04.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they called it a somersault flip into head scissors on the outside.

00:29:08.21
Aaron
Oh, a head scissors. Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:09.43
Bradley Palermo
But I was like i don't i was just like, I just wrote down, wow, like what the fuck? you know like like yeah look

00:29:14.32
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, he's,

00:29:15.86
Bradley Palermo
The shit that we could say about it is almost impossible to even touch.

00:29:19.79
Aaron
You can't do it justice. Yeah. that I mean, that these guys had wrestled each other so many times by this point in their careers. I don't remember exactly what the number was, but ah Ray mentioned in an interview once, like they wrestled each other hundreds of times easily, if not a thousand times.

00:29:36.45
Aaron
So.

00:29:36.67
Bradley Palermo
This 13 minutes feels like four because you're just captivated the entire time. They don't stop moving.

00:29:45.32
Aaron
hmm.

00:29:50.100
Bradley Palermo
it I mean, it's an understatement.

00:29:52.42
Aaron
It's an understatement.

00:29:53.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's just...

00:29:53.68
Aaron
Yeah. the the i Eddie gave Ray one of the gnarliest power bombs I've ever seen. i don't remember when in the match it happened, but I was just like, oh my God.

00:30:03.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's... I mean, I... I don't feel like I ever really say like this is required viewing, but this one obviously is required viewing.

00:30:11.59
Aaron
It is.

00:30:12.62
Bradley Palermo
And I think anyone who's well-versed in nineties wrestling events will point to this one. This is the reason I wanted to watch this.

00:30:22.28
Bradley Palermo
I've seen it, but I never really, i take it in differently when I watch for the, for the podcast. Cause I know we're going to be speaking on it, but it's, it's just really amazing i mean i guess ray's outfit's kind of dumb and i don't i don't but um eddie's ripping at ray's mask the entire time you know um i was thinking again about the spanish language how he's ray mysterio is the mystery king and uh

00:30:34.18
Aaron
I like it.

00:30:38.62
Aaron
Mask. Yeah.

00:30:48.08
Aaron
hmm.

00:30:49.96
Bradley Palermo
WCW went as far as to take the mask off to do it at one point.

00:30:54.06
Aaron
Yeah.

00:30:54.08
Bradley Palermo
ah like Later, you know, later in the... Was it ah later, right? Like more like 98?

00:30:58.24
Aaron
Yeah, like 99 or something.

00:30:58.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:00.60
Aaron
Yeah, i was it was a Bischoff and Russo decision, unfortunately.

00:31:00.68
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:31:04.84
Aaron
The guy on your shirt.

00:31:04.89
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah, yeah. I have Russo on my shirt, but ironically. um But yeah, when they were ripping off his mask, I was like, you can't ri rip off the mask of the Mystery King.

00:31:11.85
Aaron
Bro.

00:31:15.92
Bradley Palermo
like well but could see his You could see half of his eye and like, you know...

00:31:18.85
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, it was they I was surprised. i was like, man, you can see like i half of his face. I guess it's because I know what his face looks like now. But that even back then, you're like, whoa, that's like half his face.

00:31:29.16
Aaron
What the hell?

00:31:29.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I wish that they never took off his mask because as the greatest luchador of all time, as people say, it's it's kind of a shame that for for work, he basically, because some asshole white tooth made him, like he had to go unmasked and he looked like a baby the late 90s.

00:31:39.35
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:50.15
Aaron
He still looks like a baby. and

00:31:51.58
Bradley Palermo
There was nothing cool about having the mask off. It was like, you just took it all away you took away all the mystery. But... but uh i i don't have anything bad to say about it melzer wouldn't give this five stars which is kind of funny i'm sure he's had to like eat it uh eat his words yeah um 4.75 um

00:32:06.56
Aaron
Talk that back. Yeah. That's a five star match. If I've ever seen one, you just couldn't give it the extra quarter.

00:32:10.39
Bradley Palermo
four point seven five

00:32:15.14
Aaron
You son of a bitch.

00:32:16.44
Bradley Palermo
One of his best ratings of the 90s, but he was very guarded.

00:32:20.89
Aaron
Stingy.

00:32:21.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:32:21.96
Aaron
He's stingy.

00:32:22.86
Bradley Palermo
So, yeah, without a doubt, standout match of the night.

00:32:24.18
Aaron
Next to...

00:32:27.43
Bradley Palermo
And but go to match four.

00:32:27.70
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:29.32
Bradley Palermo
It's...

00:32:29.95
Aaron
Well, wait, hold on.

00:32:31.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:32:31.84
Aaron
um After this match, we got a little backstage segment with Hogan and Eric Bischoff. um This was the story thread that they were trying to weave through the pay-per-view of like, Hogan won't wrestle unless there's some kind of contract in place.

00:32:48.75
Aaron
Yeah, he is garbage. Thank you, Macho. And he won't wrestle unless there's some kind of contract put in place that bans Sting from the arena because Sting has been such a nuisance to him as of late on TV.

00:33:01.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:02.10
Aaron
um And this bled over into the next match, which was Steve Mongo McMichael against a mystery opponent that Queen Debra had hired to ah to go up against Mongo and it ended up being Alex Wright and commentary spent the first few minutes of this match talking about Hogan and the story leading up to it with Piper.

00:33:27.15
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:33:28.65
Aaron
And I was like, guys, talk about the fucking match. Like, I don't care. Like they're ah trying to be such a big deal out of this.

00:33:32.23
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:33:33.96
Aaron
And I'm just like, it's not important. I want to, want to watch the wrestling match.

00:33:37.57
Bradley Palermo
All this match was, assumed assumed they wanted us to take this as the popcorn match or the go smoke a bowl match or whatever people do.

00:33:43.93
Aaron
yeah

00:33:48.21
Aaron
pm edge Yeah.

00:34:01.28
Bradley Palermo
It was like that, but you're like, this isn't that interesting. It's like, will will Hogan wrestle? I know you're going to have a fucking main event.

00:34:08.36
Aaron
Right.

00:34:08.44
Bradley Palermo
So Hogan will wrestle. Like, well, he says he won't be here and um this is so bad. I mean, this is...

00:34:14.12
Aaron
Not to mention that the match itself was just okay. Like it was nothing to write home about. And it was less than 10 minutes. And then it had a horrible referee botch where Goldberg shows up.

00:34:27.38
Aaron
and And actually this was Goldberg early on in his career. So he'd only been on TV like a month before this. And he comes in, he suplexes Mongo, but you can actually see the referee like turn around when he's supposed to not be looking and see.

00:34:44.83
Bradley Palermo
He's being destroyed.

00:34:46.18
Aaron
Yeah, he's being distracted by Deborah and he sees Goldberg.

00:34:48.05
Bradley Palermo
Right. For a long time.

00:34:51.18
Aaron
He sees Goldberg with Mongo up in the suplex ready for the jackhammer and just goes, yeah, I guess I'm not going to look over there after all.

00:34:59.17
Bradley Palermo
And then he stays away, looking away for like so long.

00:35:03.32
Aaron
Yeah.

00:35:03.49
Bradley Palermo
Like no one would be distracted this long because doesn't Goldberg fucks up, I don't know, more people than just Mongo, Right.

00:35:08.51
Aaron
He fucks up Mongo and Jack hammers Mongo. Then he picks up Alex Wright and puts him on top of Mongo so that Alex Wright gets the pin and the win.

00:35:19.81
Aaron
And then i think Goldberg attacks Alex Wright after he takes Mongo's Super Bowl ring.

00:35:23.87
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:35:25.38
Aaron
It was just kind of a weird finish.

00:35:27.00
Bradley Palermo
and that beauty cri beauty queen lady sorry deborah you said her name is she gave goldberg mongo's super bowl ring as like payment and and then i dude i don't even know like i guess this or no was it

00:35:32.87
Aaron
Yeah.

00:35:45.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. No.

00:35:46.02
Aaron
Yeah.

00:35:46.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Mike Mongo's ring.

00:35:46.86
Aaron
Yeah,

00:35:48.62
Bradley Palermo
I guess this Mongo guy, he was in Superbowl 20, 20, um, with, with the bears, the bears.

00:35:52.95
Aaron
he was on the bears.

00:35:55.66
Bradley Palermo
Um, so, I mean, it wasn't like bad for physicality, but I mean, it was just shitty booking, shitty commentary.

00:35:55.78
Aaron
The bears. Let's go watch the bears.

00:36:04.19
Bradley Palermo
I'm sure these two guys could have had a match somewhere, some parallel universe somewhere, but this was God, this was bad. Um,

00:36:11.20
Aaron
Alex Wright did a lot of pelvic thrusting in his entrance. He had a leather jacket and then his little speedo on. It was pretty ridiculous.

00:36:18.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he was pretty like cut. he kind of I don't know. He kind of reminded me of that guy that used to hang out with Gunther. um

00:36:26.12
Aaron
Ludwig Kaiser, who is now el Grande Americano.

00:36:27.00
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah, kind of. um Meltzer gave that one a 1.5. I'd say probably dud.

00:36:33.37
Aaron
That's pretty accurate. Yeah, was it was not good.

00:36:35.30
Bradley Palermo
ah but and Anything other and under two is probably okay. um Were there any like promos after this match?

00:36:42.48
Aaron
There was, yeah, that we had Macho Man with Elizabeth in the back.

00:36:47.24
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

00:36:47.45
Aaron
ah Sadly, not Macho's best promo. He couldn't really find his words, kept doing the Slim Jim tagline of snap been into it.

00:36:58.23
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he was like, I'm so nervous. I can't even talk.

00:37:02.19
Aaron
Yeah, it it was it's not good.

00:37:12.62
Aaron
Dot com.

00:37:13.73
Bradley Palermo
It was like the whole thing spelled I'm surprised i didn't put the HTTPS colon backside ah glad on there.

00:37:13.84
Aaron
Yeah, it was the.

00:37:19.82
Bradley Palermo
I was like,

00:37:19.92
Aaron
Yeah, they were. It was the age of the Internet had begun and they were doing a real audio on WCW wrestling dot com. And they had interviews with ah Disco Inferno, I think was the first one they they promoted.

00:37:34.42
Aaron
And then there was one with Macho Man later and they and they still managed to plug the 900 number later as well.

00:37:36.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:37:40.92
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah. They definitely wanted to always, always have to do that. It's not, it's not quite, it's like the crossover between.

00:37:46.74
Aaron
Gotta get those $1.49 a minute from the kids. although they

00:37:53.34
Aaron
Although they tell the kids not to call without their parents' supervision.

00:37:56.48
Bradley Palermo
Match five was Jacqueline Moore versus disco Inferno for a mixed gender match. Um,

00:38:04.12
Aaron
This shit is dumb.

00:38:06.43
Bradley Palermo
It's pretty dumb. So Disco Inferno, disco-themed dude who has the whole crowd dancing sort of like the Saturday Night Fever dance.

00:38:15.83
Aaron
But they also hate him as soon as the bell rings.

00:38:18.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's pretty cringy just to watch this crowd like dance. you know like All they do is...

00:38:22.63
Aaron
Also, he talks a bunch of shit on social media now. I don't know if you knew that. He's like a big Twitter shit talker and everyone's like, dude, shut the fuck up, disco.

00:38:28.61
Bradley Palermo
Oh...

00:38:31.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think he he might be a podcaster too some sort.

00:38:35.12
Aaron
I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.

00:38:36.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um So he's worried about hitting a woman. you know He's fighting this like young, curvy, like like athletic, curvy lady.

00:38:46.86
Bradley Palermo
And she's she wants to fight. He doesn't want to hit a woman. So he's running from her for like 10 minutes. And then

00:38:53.89
Aaron
It was like four minutes, but yeah, the match is only 10 minutes, but it's like three to four minutes in the beginning. They don't even touch. It was like, I literally wrote this shit is dumb.

00:39:03.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, there's some kind of... there they you know They both get a couple moves. He never really hits her. She gets a nut shot. um I'm just thinking...

00:39:10.63
Aaron
Crowd very much wanted Jacqueline to beat his ass.

00:39:13.54
Bradley Palermo
Right, I was thinking, like why did you agree to this? if you're Eventually, hes just he threatens to walk out. She follows him down the entrance... the entryway and you know attacks them there but like why are you the logic isn't here in wcw at this time like like if you're just gonna walk away from the match and take the dq and you really don't want to be out there for a woman like why the fuck are you out there fighting her you could just not take the match or or

00:39:27.78
Aaron
Not at all.

00:39:38.49
Aaron
Yeah, it didn't really make sense.

00:39:39.39
Bradley Palermo
or

00:39:50.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I mean, we could just jump to it. Jacqueline rolls up disco while he's arguing with the ref for like a quick win. Like they do that a lot in wrestling. They sneak up behind you, a school boy or whatever, just kind of pull you down.

00:40:00.84
Aaron
Yeah.

00:40:01.95
Bradley Palermo
So he didn't really seem like he got the shit kicked out of him. It didn't destroy him that way. Getting beat up by a woman, but like, you know, she, she, she rolled him up.

00:40:10.78
Aaron
She got him. Yeah.

00:40:11.89
Bradley Palermo
Um, it was like probably the worst, worst match of the night. And, uh,

00:40:16.78
Aaron
Dud for Meltzer, I assume.

00:40:18.54
Bradley Palermo
0.25, quarter of a star.

00:40:19.96
Aaron
Yeah, might as well be a dead quarter of a star. Next match I was actually pretty stoked for on paper. it was Kurt Hennig versus Ric Flair for the United States Championship.

00:40:30.94
Aaron
I guess they had been feuding. Hennig had Flair's robe. Hennig is a member of the NWO at this point. Flair's music hits and he there's no pageantry from Flair. He just runs out, gets the match started, obviously wants his robe back and gets it back pretty quickly.

00:40:48.18
Aaron
um It was okay. Funny enough, I've seen better matches from Flair years after this match.

00:40:57.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:40:58.02
Aaron
I don't know what was going on here, but...

00:41:00.98
Bradley Palermo
He was 48 here and, you know, i mean, he could still go, but

00:41:01.13
Aaron
hey

00:41:04.05
Aaron
They were, yeah, they're two great workers for sure. i was always a big fan of Kurt Hennig or as he was known in WWF, Mr. Perfect. I think most people who are wrestling fans probably remember the promo of Kurt Hennig talking about how great he was and he throws a football and then runs all the way to the other side of the football field and catches his own pass.

00:41:27.17
Aaron
Have you seen that?

00:41:28.34
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:41:29.30
Aaron
Oh, it's so good playing his music.

00:41:30.84
Bradley Palermo
That's crazy.

00:41:32.00
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I did like the match. you It was just a little disappointing, but they are two great workers who are maybe a little bit past their prime. Um, I remember that Kurt had me, excuse me.

00:41:43.64
Aaron
I remember that Kurt Hennig was sadly another wrestler who died too young. ah He passed away at the age of 44 of an overdose, which was a few years after this, but still very early on.

00:41:57.44
Bradley Palermo
Him and Flair had wrestled before um on an episode of Monday Night Raw. I feel like I'd seen it, so I looked it up. But yeah, it wasn't the greatest match of their careers, but I did like how the chops just happened.

00:42:12.43
Bradley Palermo
They're not a trade. They're there smacking the shit out of each other just sort of in a combative way. Yeah.

00:42:18.25
Aaron
Yeah. No wooing from the crowd on the chops yet. That hadn't become a thing.

00:42:22.57
Bradley Palermo
Right. um Classic American wrestling match vibe. But and the commentary is heavily referencing if Hulk Hogan is going to wrestle. i they're talking over this one, too.

00:42:34.59
Aaron
Right. Again, it's just like,

00:42:34.98
Bradley Palermo
And you have Ric Flair in the and and, you know, Kurt or Mr. Perfect in the ring. And you're just talking about Hogan. And it's kind of annoying.

00:42:43.82
Aaron
devaluing the match. Yeah.

00:42:44.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So.

00:42:45.67
Aaron
And i also didn't love the finish. Uh, flair got Hennig in the, what we call the tree of woe. Now he, he clipped his, uh, foot underneath the top turnbuckle, hung him upside down and put the U S championship belt over his face, gave it a drop kick. And, uh, that was enough for a disqualification from the referee. Yeah.

00:43:04.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and and Flair's trying to run in with chairs, and he's trying to get disqualified.

00:43:08.90
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:10.42
Bradley Palermo
And I guess the the point of it was Flair was so mad at Kurt that he didn't want to win. He wasn't trying to get that U.S.

00:43:18.80
Bradley Palermo
heavyweight title.

00:43:20.09
Aaron
He was trying to beat the shit out of him.

00:43:21.04
Bradley Palermo
He just wanted to beat the shit out of him and use weapons or whatever, um foreign objects.

00:43:24.16
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:26.12
Bradley Palermo
So, yeah, the point...

00:43:26.32
Aaron
It's like, why not just have that match then?

00:43:28.31
Bradley Palermo
Right. The booking really kind of destroyed any chances of it actually being good. So, yeah.

00:43:33.85
Aaron
I wonder if there was a blow off after this.

00:43:36.40
Bradley Palermo
I wonder if there was.

00:43:36.56
Aaron
I don't know.

00:43:37.32
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um

00:43:38.94
Aaron
What did Meltzer give it?

00:43:38.100
Bradley Palermo
Was there? Oh, Meltzer gave it a one and three quarter stars. Mm hmm.

00:43:43.62
Aaron
Ouch. That was a little better than that. There was another promo after this, or and I wouldn't call it a promo. It was a segment. So ah the chairman of the WCW executive committee, JJ Dillon, who we have seen before in older pay-per-views is on stage with mean gene.

00:43:57.90
Bradley Palermo
ah yeah

00:44:00.36
Aaron
And he is ah addressing the demands that Hogan and Bischoff made earlier about banning sting from the building And he's like, no, the match will go on.

00:44:10.70
Aaron
And Bischoff comes out and he keeps saying, you don't have the stroke. I'm like, what is that phrase?

00:44:17.14
Bradley Palermo
What does that mean? yeah he keeps saying you don't have the stroke.

00:44:17.99
Aaron
I don't know. he talking about like masturbation?

00:44:24.04
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. i think...

00:44:24.98
Aaron
You ain't got the stroke, bro.

00:44:26.97
Bradley Palermo
I think he was talking, seemed like you don't have the power or the authority, but it didn't, yeah.

00:44:30.49
Aaron
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. But every time he keeps saying you don't have the stroke, I'm like, bro, are you being so homoerotic?

00:44:37.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, no, I get it. i was thinking I was thinking the things same thing, like this whole stroke thing. Bischoff is, I mean, I guess he's a good heel. he really

00:44:48.05
Aaron
He's annoying.

00:44:48.13
Bradley Palermo
He's really fucking annoying and smug.

00:44:49.95
Aaron
Yeah.

00:44:51.17
Bradley Palermo
And, you know, he was in charge of this booking team and creative. He did a terrible job at this point. like said i think he was a one-trick pony that was kind of that 1996 era and wcw seems from this show to be just falling apart and anything that makes any fucking sense

00:45:07.99
Aaron
And what's crazy is that this was still during the 83 weeks that WCW was beating WWF in the ratings, like on TV.

00:45:15.29
Bradley Palermo
yeah is it's got to be close to the end okay so it's still several months yeah

00:45:43.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:45:43.100
Aaron
They never ever touched until starcade, which was in December of 97.

00:45:44.01
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:45:49.62
Aaron
And that was its own thing, which we should probably watch at some point and, and dissect. But that was the feud that everybody was excited about. Everybody wanted to see that them see sting get his hands on Hogan. So,

00:46:02.61
Bradley Palermo
right

00:46:03.32
Aaron
That was probably part of the reason why they were still beating WWF. And there was the whole unpredictability thing. And NWO were bad guys, but they were cool.

00:46:14.73
Aaron
And we kind of see that on display in the next match, which was Scott Hall versus Lex Luger with Larry Zbysko as the special guest referee. um it's It's odd because...

00:46:28.78
Aaron
When I look back at the NWO now, it's so fascinating to me because they they're bad guys, but they get cheers and people wear the shirts.

00:46:38.75
Bradley Palermo
Thank you.

00:46:39.64
Aaron
They have NWO signs. They get cheered in their entrances, but then they don't really get cheered in the matches so much. Like, it's just a very strange thing looking back now And seeing like, okay, yeah, clearly they had something going for them, but they behaved like heels in the ring.

00:46:59.69
Aaron
And like the crowd was, was behind Luger, even though the NWO gets cheers when they come out, like as soon as the match starts, it was just cheering for Luger. You know, it's so strange.

00:47:10.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but that's, I guess, I don't know. It throws me off in modern times where people are like, they love to sing for Seth Rollins. Whoa. And all that shit.

00:47:22.46
Bradley Palermo
And then he gets in the ring and they're cheering the other guy. it's

00:47:25.96
Aaron
Seth is a wanker.

00:47:27.32
Bradley Palermo
yeah, it's, it's weird, but it happens and it happened back then too. But, um,

00:47:32.64
Aaron
I enjoyed this match as well. I love Scott Hall. i As I've said before, I've been enjoying Luger in my later years as an adult. um I always enjoy Scott Hall. i There was you know an interesting element to the match with Zbysko, who very clearly does not like the NWO.

00:47:54.63
Aaron
He's counting very slowly for Scott Hall, which, you know, normally would piss me off if it was my old pal, Nick Patrick. But for this, I was like, yeah, all right. and If Sabisco wants to count slow, that's fine with me.

00:48:08.67
Aaron
It was kind of a slow match, honestly, but intentionally slow, like paced on purpose to be slow. um i thought it was good.

00:48:18.12
Aaron
ah Yeah. what Did you like it

00:48:19.66
Bradley Palermo
These guys have actually never had a match together, which I think I thought was interesting.

00:48:23.12
Aaron
Oh, really?

00:48:23.94
Bradley Palermo
I guess their tenure never really lined up in WWE because Luder was back and oh no, no, they, they were, they did overlap a little bit, but not long enough for anything to materialize between the two.

00:48:29.60
Aaron
Yeah, they Luger was.

00:48:36.62
Aaron
Yeah, like 93 93 93 probably was when Razor Ramon showed up.

00:48:42.69
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:48:43.49
Aaron
Yeah, I guess they didn't know that's that's interesting.

00:48:43.72
Bradley Palermo
But they'll,

00:49:09.91
Aaron
Yeah.

00:49:14.23
Bradley Palermo
I just thought, you know, you put someone in that hold, I don't know, I've i' um've been in that before and you just fucking go out like pretty quick. Someone puts their arm around your fucking throat.

00:49:25.06
Bradley Palermo
But um best thing you can do is go limp so before you pass out so you can kind of slip under.

00:49:25.85
Aaron
Yeah.

00:49:31.22
Bradley Palermo
They're like, oh, he's out. and um

00:49:34.25
Bradley Palermo
Lex got thrown out of the ring and you could hear a fan so loud that it made the closed captions. go he goes you dyed your hair

00:49:43.85
Aaron
i did hear

00:49:45.32
Bradley Palermo
and it says like on the screen because lex is like bottle bleach blonde at this point it was like as loud as commentary i was usually the crowd responses don't make it on there

00:49:50.48
Aaron
Yeah.

00:49:59.30
Bradley Palermo
um

00:50:00.32
Aaron
Yep, I remember that. Oh, man.

00:50:03.43
Bradley Palermo
Zabisco throws Hall out of the ring and a Hall gets like physical with them. So there was a little bit, as soon as you see your guest referee, you got, you know, like, Hey, there's going to be some shenanigans.

00:50:12.78
Aaron
There's going to some shenanigans.

00:50:13.93
Bradley Palermo
So I'm like, how is Zabisco going to fuck this shit up?

00:50:14.16
Aaron
Yeah.

00:50:16.71
Bradley Palermo
But, um,

00:50:18.30
Aaron
Well, he missed a piece of interference by Six, better known as X-Pac or the 1-2-3 Kid, ah who kicked Luger in the back of the head. Larry Zbysko was distracted by Bischoff, who had come out to you know get his attention away from the match.

00:50:35.09
Aaron
Scott Hall hits the razor's edge, which I don't think he called it that in there, but I don't remember what they said.

00:50:39.71
Bradley Palermo
No, no, they didn't call it.

00:50:41.57
Aaron
He got the pin and the win, or so we thought, because Zbysko smelled some foolishness and wanted to see the replay. He saw the interference.

00:50:51.79
Aaron
He made the match restart, and then it just broke down into a schmaz. And I'm not really sure who won because Zbysko got attacked by everyone, and and then the match just kind of was over.

00:51:01.56
Bradley Palermo
Luger wins with the torture rack.

00:51:03.25
Aaron
No, he didn't win.

00:51:04.70
Bradley Palermo
Oh, he didn't?

00:51:05.41
Aaron
Yeah, he was going to do the torture act, but then the interference happened. Hall hit him with the with the razor's edge, got the pin, and then Zabisco was like, no, no, let me see the replay. And then saw Six interfering. It was like, we're restarting the match. And then everybody just started attacking each other and somebody knocked Zabisco out. And then the match was just over.

00:51:24.08
Bradley Palermo
Okay. I, uh, all right. The part where fucking

00:51:29.07
Bradley Palermo
going back to before this match, when Dylan pulled out the document, I don't really think he said what it was, what it even read somehow. Yeah.

00:51:36.82
Aaron
Yeah, he was just like, I've got the contract right here, and he didn't say anything about it.

00:51:40.45
Bradley Palermo
yeah nothing Yeah, nothing about it. so But we were supposed to believe that that means Hogan's actually going to wrestle, which we already know. But but he yeah, he just forgot to...

00:51:46.82
Aaron
But he doesn't have the stroke.

00:51:50.18
Aaron
That's what happens when you don't have the stroke.

00:51:51.42
Bradley Palermo
If he had the stroke... Yeah, dude.

00:51:54.09
Aaron
He didn't and he didn't didn't explain why Hogan had to wrestle.

00:51:57.69
Bradley Palermo
And his Farrah Fawcett hair all feathered back and shit.

00:52:01.22
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:52:01.74
Bradley Palermo
His black Farrah Fawcett mullet. It was weird. um I know that was before this match, but... But it's it's still just so, I don't know. It's just such a sloppy piece of wrestling history to try and make any sense of.

00:52:16.14
Bradley Palermo
Our match eight.

00:52:17.56
Bradley Palermo
Oh, do you want to know

00:52:19.03
Bradley Palermo
the Meltzer rating on this one? oh I don't have it anyways. Oh, yeah. The Meltzer rating on Lex Luger versus Scott Hall was quarter star also.

00:52:26.32
Aaron
Oof, geez.

00:52:28.04
Bradley Palermo
And then going to match eight, we have Randy Savage versus DDP Diamond Dallas Page in a Las Vegas sudden death match, which is.

00:52:38.22
Bradley Palermo
So ah sudden death match seems ridiculous because one fall is sudden death.

00:52:43.96
Aaron
Right.

00:52:44.17
Bradley Palermo
In sports like the NHL, it's like whoever scores first in this extra period wins the match.

00:52:44.54
Aaron
this this

00:52:47.86
Aaron
Next score wins, yeah.

00:52:50.52
Bradley Palermo
So sudden death, actually, and I don't know a whole lot about sports, but I know that in any sport, if you're in sudden death, it's at the next score, the next goal, the next whatever, basket,

00:52:58.63
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:01.49
Aaron
Touchdown.

00:53:02.35
Bradley Palermo
yes you win so some some idiot yes and this is what aew would call a texas death match which is also inaccurate because a texas death match is a three count you pin and then you get up and the guy has to stay on the ground for 10 more for a count of 10 more that's what and then

00:53:03.32
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. This was just a death match.

00:53:21.03
Aaron
Oh, okay. I actually didn't know that. i've never so I guess I've never seen a real Texas death match then.

00:53:27.01
Bradley Palermo
And AEW calls just, ah they call a last man standing match a Texas death match.

00:53:33.93
Aaron
Yeah, this was a last man standing match.

00:53:34.56
Bradley Palermo
A last man, this is a last man standing.

00:53:36.14
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:49.31
Aaron
it was It was a pretty standard, like, no disqualification match for me.

00:53:49.53
Bradley Palermo
It's,

00:53:53.19
Aaron
You know, they fight in the crowd, they fight over here, they fight over there. um I liked this match, too, even though Macho Man is clearly well past his prime.

00:54:03.36
Aaron
DDP is somehow right in the middle of his prime, and he's like 38.

00:54:05.82
Bradley Palermo
Even though he's yeah, he's the oldest. I think he was the oldest like big time wrestler to debut. I think he started at age 35. So. Yeah.

00:54:14.20
Aaron
Yeah, well, he he he had shown up once before, but like it didn't last very long.

00:54:14.47
Bradley Palermo
um so

00:54:19.75
Aaron
I think he was think he was in that WCW thing we saw from like 89.

00:54:24.59
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:54:25.29
Aaron
One of the Clash of Champions, maybe.

00:54:27.18
Bradley Palermo
That must have been when he was 35. Because I know he he started at 35.

00:54:29.44
Aaron
Yes, so he's like already 40 at this point.

00:54:31.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I know. He's a pretty old dude. I mean, he's like 70 years old now. 68 or something like that.

00:54:37.01
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:37.75
Bradley Palermo
He does like yoga. and He's an inspirational type of sort of dude. But um helps people get sober and shit. But he... And Macho Man. Yeah, I mean, this was one of the best matches. It's not...

00:54:51.41
Bradley Palermo
much to say and in this pay-per-view but it wasn't bad um it wasn't like the

00:54:55.92
Aaron
No, I enjoyed it. it that There was some silly stuff like they fought up to the entrance and were like throwing each other into the styrofoam coffins and headstones, which exploded into white dotted goodness.

00:55:13.41
Bradley Palermo
Right, it really ex exposed the illegitimacy of the the tombstones there. Oh, God. but

00:55:22.88
Aaron
Macho Man hit a camera grabbed a camera and he was ready to hit DDP, but DDP kicked it into Macho's face. and Shivani was like, oh my God, he broke a camera. That's like $100,000.

00:55:33.50
Bradley Palermo
He did. Shivani also, i gotta say, just whatever his whiny voice is and his he doesn't he's so bad as the main play-by-play commentator and like yeah and dusty who's like the best one is kind of funny he he doesn't say anything for 10 20 minutes at a time sometimes yeah oh dude but yeah liz uh knocks out the ref um

00:55:43.84
Aaron
He's better than he is now. All he does now is just be like, this is great. I'm having a great time.

00:55:56.52
Aaron
think he went to go take a nap or something.

00:56:13.67
Bradley Palermo
um It's just, it's kind of awkward for me to see some dude with his wife from the eighties that he's been like estranged from accused of assaulting.

00:56:20.85
Aaron
Accused of assaulting.

00:56:24.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And it's, it's, it's just because Bischoff just wants all that glory that he can take from whatever worked before we'll do it again. It's kind of the mindset. Yeah.

00:56:33.04
Aaron
yeah

00:56:47.63
Bradley Palermo
But, um,

00:56:48.75
Aaron
Yeah, this was very much like like sports entertainment, you know? um my My old pal Nick Patrick showed up with a dopey-ass mustache once the referee got dragged out by...

00:57:02.71
Aaron
I got dragged out by Elizabeth or smacked by Elizabeth. Um, i I mean, say what you will about the match. It was, it was good. it wasn't great, but DDP, he was over, man.

00:57:14.22
Aaron
The crowd loved him.

00:57:14.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:57:15.54
Aaron
They were ready for that diamond cutter. And, uh, He went for it pretty late in the match and Savage had an interesting sort of counter to it. He he was close to the ropes and he just grabbed the top rope so DDP DDP couldn't you know finish the diamond and cutter. I thought that was kind of interesting.

00:57:31.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and then at some point, ah Hogan comes out dressed as Sting and smacks DDP with a bat.

00:57:38.86
Aaron
Yep.

00:57:42.28
Bradley Palermo
Savage gets the win. Pretty shitty finish again. Like, they can't do anything clean.

00:57:46.64
Aaron
Yep.

00:57:47.65
Bradley Palermo
They can't do anything any level of seriousness. Yeah. it's just i'm at this point i'm like researching like who fucking booked this like what is this shit you know it was bischoff but he was apparently he was focusing more on like the nwo celebrity tie-ins things of that nature and hogan and hall and uh nash had kind of their own

00:57:57.17
Aaron
It was Bischoff.

00:58:12.37
Bradley Palermo
They were free to book as they pleased. So everyone was kind of booking for themselves. It was kind of the inmates running the asylum, so to speak.

00:58:18.30
Aaron
Yeah.

00:58:21.31
Bradley Palermo
So thank God we're almost there, right?

00:58:21.36
Aaron
But then it was time for the main event. And, you know, yeah. And, you know, the one thing I will give WCW credit for is that they always had Michael Buffer, the famous boxing announcer who would always say, let's get ready to rumble.

00:58:39.04
Aaron
ah He always does the introductions for the main events.

00:58:39.98
Bradley Palermo
You're not allowed to say that.

00:58:42.19
Aaron
We're not allowed to say that. We're going to get sued.

00:58:43.24
Bradley Palermo
No, no. I mean, I think yeah you're not, and like people are not allowed to say that in general, but we can say it because they're not going to find this podcast.

00:58:53.33
Aaron
Sue me. Yeah. Uh, I always, always brings a touch of class to the main events. Um, and so we got Hogan versus Piper in a steel cage. Uh, first thing that made me audibly laugh out loud was when Michael buffer build Roddy Piper as being a native of Glasgow, Scotland,

00:59:10.96
Bradley Palermo
Dude, I wrote down the same thing. I was like, this motherfucker's from Canada.

00:59:14.97
Aaron
Detroit or something. Yeah.

00:59:16.31
Bradley Palermo
Saskatchewan or whatever, however you say it.

00:59:16.56
Aaron
Canada. Yeah.

00:59:18.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:59:19.35
Aaron
Yeah, and Piper came out. he had Hogan's belt for some reason. I guess he had taken it away from him, but Hogan was still the WCW World Heavyweight Champion at this time, and this this steel cage match was not for the title.

00:59:31.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:59:31.91
Aaron
This match was garbage. ah Piper spent the first 60 seconds biting Hogan's ass and back and head.

00:59:37.83
Bradley Palermo
Ass. Ass. Yeah, dude. and And before the match, okay, so there's no referee in this fucking ring, right? Because they're telling us, correct me if I'm wrong, Aaron, but they're telling us you have to, there's first of all, they say there's no door, right?

00:59:52.32
Bradley Palermo
Or they make a, then there's a door and it's open. And they tell us, then they're like, you have to escape.

00:59:55.56
Aaron
They're like, you just have to survive. Whoever survives.

00:59:59.99
Bradley Palermo
They may have not said a thing about there's no door, but they they definitely, they're like, there's no referee because it's all about survival. They make me think like you have to get out, but they, they fight, and they fight outside of the ring.

01:00:07.84
Aaron
Yeah, but but then both of them get out.

01:00:12.23
Bradley Palermo
They fight their way and like punching and and grabbing onto each other. And they walk right outside the ring and there's no locked door.

01:00:19.51
Aaron
Yeah, because they stepped outside of the cage door at the same time, that's what the commentators said. They were like, oh, well, they both walked out at the same time, so I guess nobody won.

01:00:26.93
Bradley Palermo
But, but clearly the commentary are just trying to figure out what the hell's going on also, because why are they outside the fucking ring?

01:00:32.57
Aaron
yeah. yeah

01:00:35.37
Bradley Palermo
It should be over. It should be, they both lost or, so or whoever, whoever walked out first, but no, they keep on going. Um,

01:00:43.59
Aaron
And it gets worse as time goes on to like they there. It appears as though sting shows up in the entrance way. But after you take a second to look, you're like, that's someone wearing a sting mask.

01:00:58.38
Bradley Palermo
Right.

01:00:58.87
Aaron
And then like 30 seconds later, there's another sting.

01:01:01.54
Bradley Palermo
Right.

01:01:01.82
Aaron
And like within the next few minutes, there's like five stings just like randomly around.

01:01:05.77
Bradley Palermo
That's like where... That's where like Raven and all those people come from, come into play, right? They're all the stings.

01:01:11.89
Aaron
Oh, is that who they are? That would make a lot of sense.

01:01:12.82
Bradley Palermo
I think so. I thought one of them looked like Raven,

01:01:15.29
Aaron
I don't know that anybody actually revealed who these fake stings were, but this was just sloppy.

01:01:15.38
Bradley Palermo
but

01:01:22.57
Aaron
It was not very fun. And you could tell that it was bad, not just because what we're saying, but because the crowd was like completely unresponsive to this entire thing.

01:01:32.72
Bradley Palermo
And they're trying to climb out of the cage, even though the door is wide fucking open. And it's not the cage that you see like in WWE, w where it's right around the ring. It's more like the Hell in a Cell style without a top, where it like it extends beyond the outside of the...

01:01:44.47
Aaron
Except it's flimsy as all hell.

01:01:49.26
Aaron
Yeah, dude, it it looks scary when they were climbing up there.

01:01:50.02
Bradley Palermo
But it's flimsy. And they're...

01:01:52.56
Aaron
It was like.

01:01:53.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:01:54.38
Aaron
Wiggling and shit.

01:01:55.79
Bradley Palermo
And then all of a sudden, they put a ref in there anyways, which I'm not really...

01:01:58.64
Aaron
Yeah, because Hogan's like, oh, I'm going to give him a leg drop. So you you got you got to count the pin. I'm like, what is this? What are they doing?

01:02:05.41
Bradley Palermo
And there's just more stings showing up over and over. Hogan tries to climb out at one point, but he decides to climb back in because he's so scared of stings, which is fine.

01:02:14.71
Aaron
Because one of the fake stings is threatening him. Yeah.

01:02:19.24
Bradley Palermo
But if the stings...

01:02:20.32
Aaron
But it's so clearly not sting. And like, well, that's, they didn't explain who all of these fake stings were. If they had done any of that, then it probably would have been better.

01:02:28.85
Bradley Palermo
Well... My issue is, and i it doesn't really matter what order we go in because this is a shit match, but Piper gets like beat up by the NWO at the end, and none of those fake stings are anywhere to be found.

01:02:42.29
Aaron
Yeah, one of them, I think, showed up.

01:02:42.62
Bradley Palermo
So what...

01:02:44.13
Aaron
Someone ripped off his mask and it was a dude with like a stocking over his head and you couldn't even see who it was. i was like, what is the point of this?

01:02:50.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I don't know. And a fan... i mean Okay, so hold on.

01:02:53.100
Aaron
Piper gets Hogan in a sleeper. Technically, he wins the match. It's the only time the crowd reacts to anything except for after that.

01:03:00.19
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:03:01.99
Aaron
And then then they start chanting, we want Sting because they want the real Sting, not these five fakers.

01:03:06.16
Bradley Palermo
Right. and Piper gets like handcuffed to the cage and gets the crap beat out of them. And there's a fan, ah quote unquote fan climbs into the ring. I don't remember, I remember watching this part before and it's like, and not, I don't think it's a fan.

01:03:17.87
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:03:20.06
Bradley Palermo
I think it's just, they planted someone's via the fan and they made a big deal.

01:03:23.22
Aaron
I don't know. Yeah. it's i i'm I'm curious if it's real or not, because the one thing I do know is that when a fan does come and interfere in ah in a wrestling match, the wrestlers beat the shit out of them and the ref too.

01:03:35.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:03:37.17
Aaron
And they were kind of doing that.

01:03:39.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:03:39.18
Aaron
I don't know if you noticed, but like Hogan was hitting him hard. Macho was grabbing him really hard. Even the referee was like pulling on him. So maybe it was a real fan, but It just it was like, why are you doing this? Why is this necessary? And then the pay-per-view is just over. We're out of time.

01:03:54.80
Bradley Palermo
yeah

01:03:55.06
Aaron
And then it's just credits. i'm like, what the fuck? This is terrible. This This is the war like this ruins the whole pay-per-view because this finish was so stupid.

01:03:58.95
Bradley Palermo
yeah

01:04:05.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. yeah Okay. So this is saying the person who climbed into the ring at Halloween Havoc 1997 was not a real fan, but a quote unquote plant wrestler who was part of a planned storyline.

01:04:11.41
Aaron
okay

01:04:15.04
Bradley Palermo
So, um, according to the internet, it wasn't real.

01:04:18.40
Aaron
Congratulations. You made a dumb fucking choice.

01:04:21.100
Bradley Palermo
Right.

01:04:22.23
Aaron
That was terrible.

01:04:23.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was pretty bad.

01:04:25.50
Aaron
WCW with, with shit main events yet again. That's the thing. Like Hogan always wanted to be in the main event, always controlled the booking and just none of them were ever good ever.

01:04:36.79
Bradley Palermo
What do you think Meltzer gave this one?

01:04:38.96
Aaron
One.

01:04:39.78
Bradley Palermo
He actually went dud on this one.

01:04:41.61
Aaron
Okay. Yeah.

01:04:42.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. But... Yeah. Confusing. Stupid. um

01:04:47.82
Aaron
And then it's just over and like, yeah, it's just like,

01:04:48.89
Bradley Palermo
Big names. You know, huge expectation. But like you said, it's in a long line of weak closers. But this was... Let's get into the grapple grade. How about that?

01:04:56.87
Bradley Palermo
our grap we are Our rating system here, as some of you all might know, is fast forward, play, rewind.

01:04:57.26
Aaron
yeah

01:05:02.55
Bradley Palermo
Fast forward being boo, play being yay, and rewind being two thumbs up. On this one, I would say this is one of the worst pay-per-views we've watched ah since we started the show in the past 20 years.

01:05:16.03
Bradley Palermo
23 episodes of the show. um Sure. We've had some bangers in there, but this one for all the above reasons for the past hour that we've been talking has been is like total complete shit.

01:05:29.10
Bradley Palermo
I would say watch, obviously, Ray and Eddie. That's required viewing. And I agree with everyone who's ever said as much, but you can always just grab that um you know on YouTube but wherever.

01:05:44.48
Bradley Palermo
i would assume you'd feel the same, Aaron.

01:05:48.14
Aaron
Well, I did originally write down that I can't in good conscience give this a fast forward.

01:05:53.66
Bradley Palermo
I, oh, I said fast, did I say fast forward? Or did I just say it sucks?

01:05:56.36
Aaron
I don't know. Did you? just said it sucks, I think.

01:05:57.52
Bradley Palermo
I think, I think last time I ah went on and on and never said that i I meant to give it a rewind for last episode. But yeah, fast forward for sure on this one.

01:06:07.81
Aaron
So for me, i can't in i originally felt like I couldn't in good conscience give this a fast forward because of the Rey Mysterio Jr.

01:06:07.88
Bradley Palermo
Go ahead.

01:06:15.67
Aaron
and Eddie Guerrero match. And honestly, I thought that Ultimo Dragon and Nagata was really good. I enjoyed Macho Man versus DDP for what it was.

01:06:26.25
Aaron
ah So I was going to go play, but talking about this main event has riled me up so much. um And I am very much of the belief that, you know, people tend to remember the finish of something more than anything else, whether that is an individual match or the main event of a pay-per-view.

01:06:46.30
Aaron
So...

01:06:46.35
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. All's well that ends well. Yeah.

01:06:48.80
Aaron
Yeah, so I'm going to give it a fast forward. And I'm going to say the same thing that you said, which is watch Rey Mysterio Jr.

01:06:51.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:06:56.10
Aaron
versus Eddie Guerrero. It is one of the best matches you will ever see from WCW, at least mid to late 90s WCW. But everything else is mostly terrible, as Charles Barkley would say.

01:07:27.55
Bradley Palermo
We always love to hear from you out there, the Grapple Gang. You can call us at 626-657-SLAMM. six five seven slam

01:07:34.96
Bradley Palermo
That'll reach our Google Voice line. You can leave a voicemail and we will play whatever you have to say. If you want to tell us where you were when you saw your first pro wrestling pay-per-view, you want to tell us a pay-per-view that we haven't reviewed yet that we should, we'd like to hear that.

01:07:50.59
Bradley Palermo
And if you just want to cut a promo on Aaron or cut a promo on me, good or bad, we'd love to hear it. You can also hit us up. All of our contact information is in the Grapple City podcast.

01:08:02.66
Bradley Palermo
description. We're also on X Twitter, Tik TOK, what have you at grapple city pod, Instagram, probably more than the others.

01:08:08.96
Aaron
Instagram.

01:08:12.78
Bradley Palermo
Um, I know we're running a little, we're running a little late on time right now. I'm not going to go like crazy with a voicemail. Although I I promise I will play another voicemail next week. We're doing this more and more often, but I, um, let's see, what do I have here?

01:08:26.65
Bradley Palermo
Somebody, uh, Mercedes Benz commented. It's not the car company though. It's just a dude called Mercedes Benz.

01:08:34.37
Bradley Palermo
commented on our Halloween Havoc 1996 clip on TikTok. This is at Mercedes retrograde on TikTok and said that he actually was there for Halloween Havoc 96, which we probably shit all over a little bit. It wasn't like the greatest thing, right? I can't remember now.

01:08:53.92
Aaron
It was fun.

01:08:53.96
Bradley Palermo
Did we say it was a play?

01:08:54.45
Aaron
That was the one I was there for.

01:08:56.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Oh, wait. What's the one with... um What's the one with fucking...

01:09:00.50
Aaron
The Chamber of Horrors.

01:09:24.60
Aaron
cheesy.

01:09:36.37
Aaron
oh yeah, I believe that.

01:09:39.28
Bradley Palermo
WCW. And you know, I get that, you know, if you're, if it's like you're, if it's nostalgic for you, right? Like, honestly, even this pay-per-view that we just watched, that was kind of total shit.

01:09:49.78
Bradley Palermo
I have a lot of fun watching it. And there's, and the things that I remember are the people that I remember, like seeing, you know, Henning and flair and stuff I get excited about. And I could see how, if you were a kid watching that, that it would be cool.

01:10:02.76
Bradley Palermo
some of the stuff like that particular spot with the electric chair was, was not, you know, particularly nostalgic for me.

01:10:03.03
Aaron
Yeah.

01:10:08.93
Bradley Palermo
It was just stupid. It was just, it is, it was me like 43 years old watching it, you know? So,

01:10:14.20
Aaron
Right. I mean, if you were like a seven year old in the audience, you might've thought it was real. So I could see how you probably were like, whoa, wrestling is cool. Yeah.

01:10:22.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, I get that. And yeah, I mean, 1991, WWF is a bit different. You know, it's it has like a less gritty quality to it.

01:10:32.90
Bradley Palermo
And it's all about just like

01:10:34.23
Aaron
Yeah, it's like Ultimate Warrior and Isaac Yankum and shit.

01:10:36.76
Bradley Palermo
Big boss man.

01:10:38.84
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:10:39.14
Bradley Palermo
yeah everyone's got like a career. You're like, you're you're a cop.

01:10:41.21
Aaron
The Gardener, the Bushwhacker.

01:10:42.78
Bradley Palermo
You're a Monty. You do weird shit in the Outback. Like, I don't know. But yeah, it was very character-y.

01:10:47.17
Aaron
You're a clown.

01:10:50.14
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, no, that was... I mean, that was still one of the funniest spots. One of the funniest shit, like bad spots we've seen is Abdullah and the electric chair. So that was cool.

01:10:59.52
Bradley Palermo
I guess that's all the time we've got for today. But before we leave... this was my call, Aaron. I apologize for that one. Um, but we got to watch them all, man Can't all be good.

01:11:10.78
Bradley Palermo
So, right.

01:11:11.23
Aaron
Like Pokemon. Gotta catch them all, baby.

01:11:13.73
Bradley Palermo
So you are calling the next pay-per-view we're going to watch. Uh, go ahead and give that to me if you don't mind.

01:11:19.08
Aaron
Sure. um you you're You're influencing me to continue to pick October pay-per-views since we are in the month of October. So I'm going to go chronological from my last choice, and we're going to watch No Mercy 2002.

01:11:34.88
Aaron
two thousand two

01:11:37.01
Bradley Palermo
Hmm. No mercy. 2002. What's that one all about?

01:11:40.10
Aaron
So No no Mercy 2002 was in Little Rock, Arkansas. And highlights of this one, we have Brock Lesnar versus The Undertaker in A Hell in a Cell.

01:11:54.09
Bradley Palermo
Wow.

01:11:54.83
Aaron
We've got Trish Stratus versus Victoria, ah Triple H versus Kane, RVD versus Ric Flair, um Tori Wilson against Dawn Marie.

01:12:07.40
Aaron
yeah woo

01:12:07.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:12:13.22
Bradley Palermo
That's interesting. Hadn't seen Edge and Mysterio tag before.

01:12:14.52
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:12:18.83
Aaron
Oh yeah, they were a tag team for a while. I do remember that. They were actually, i think, yeah, it was a year after what we had watched previously.

01:12:21.56
Bradley Palermo
no

01:12:25.88
Aaron
So Edge was still a baby face. Rey had come to WWE. Oh yeah, because this is right, this is like ah very soon after they became WWE.

01:12:37.76
Bradley Palermo
I see.

01:13:07.88
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, don't forget to don't forget to call that number. 626-657-SLAM. I'm going to play some voicemails on the next episode.

01:13:15.92
Aaron
Adios. Catch you the cheap seats.