A few years ago, dedicated fans of professional wrestling survived and thrived by trading tapes, reading industry mags, and watching whatever they could catch in their local television market, be it WCCW, WWF, Mid-South, USWA, NWA/WCW, AWA, or a host of other promotions. But after the global explosion of professional wrestling and the onset of new technologies such as TiVo, DVR, and the Internet, there are great libraries available at the click of a mouse. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you YouTube.
TODAY’S ISSUE: The plethora of wrestling videos on YouTube
I don’t ordinarily spend a lot of time on a site like YouTube, primarily because I have no interest in watching The Star Wars Kid, Gary Brolsma, Tron Guy, Adam “Tay Zonday” Nyerere Bahner, Chris Crocker, Sneezing Panda, Afro Ninja, Dramatic Gopher, or the Laughing Baby. However, when you’re having a discussion with your buddy about a famous moment like Brock Lesnar and Big Show destroying a SmackDown! ring, or the Ultimate Warrior in the mirror in Hogan’s locker room, there’s no place better to look than YouTube.
If you’re hoping to find a classic match-up like any one of many Flair/Steamboat epics, the bloody “I Quit” steel cage match for the United States title between Magnum T.A. and Tully Blanchard, or the King of the Ring trainwreck between Mankind and the Undertaker, YouTube is your hook-up: holler if you hear me. This weekend, myself and fellow South Korea-exile and the leader of the bWo, the almighty Buddha, found ourselves swapping YouTube links and digging deep into the archives of pro wrestling’s illustrious past. Here are a few of the satisfying nuggets I enjoyed over the past two days:
From the “Before They Were Famous” category (it’s very interesting to see the humble beginnings of some of these future stars).
It must have been sometime in 1985 when a very young and green Shawn Michaels met Billy (Jack) Hanes in the Sportatorium in Dallas for WCCW. As the established star at that time, Hanes squashed Michaels in 1:30, but not before Shawn got a few seconds to show a glimpse of the cocky heel that would come years later. In any day or age, it was bizarre seeing a scared look in the eyes of the future HBK, and watching him get pummeled and quickly defeated was almost surreal.
Once upon a time in USWA, Steve Williams faced the Punisher. I’m guessing it was late 1980s or early ‘90s when the men who would go on to battle each other in countless matches years later in the guises of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Undertaker, faced off in a monster heel thrashing of the good-looking rookie, as the Punisher mauled Williams in short order. Steve’s entire offense consisted of a minute-long headlock before Punisher went on offense for about 30 seconds, ending the match with, of all things, a big stinky leg-drop of doom (sorry, Mr. Keith). Knowing where they both went and how their history played out makes this an amazing bit of footage.
From the “Big Debuts” division (the night the world changed forever, otherwise known as when a wrestler changed promotions).
If you’re talking about big, well-hyped debuts, you’ve got to be talking about Chris Jericho’s famous arrival in the WWF, interrupting the Rock mid-sentence following weeks of millennium countdown mystery to deliver his “here to save the company” promo and match wits against the Great One in a verbal showdown. It’s such fun to go back and take another look at this monumental moment in WWF history. For the sake of continuity, I also watched the SAVE_US.Y2J return of the Ayatollah of Rock and Roll-a from last November, but it was nowhere near as enthralling as the 1999 introduction of Jericho to the New York territory. Still, it was right there on the screen, so why not?
Then there was the WWF debut of Goldberg the night after WrestleMania XIX, also interrupting the Rock. This got Goldberg’s WWF career off to a great start, but sadly it would go downhill from there; a telling truth about how Vince is great out of the gate, but rarely brings it all the way home. This moment is a great reminder of how cool WWF used to be, but it also highlights the sad truth that there isn’t much like this left in McMahon’s tired, old empire.
As long as we’re talking about the WWF debuts of former WCW stars, I also checked out Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner’s arrival in WWE at the 2002 Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden. He leveled both Matt Hardy and Chris Nowinski, but didn’t declare which “brand” he’d signed with, RAW or SmackDown!, therefore departing the famous arena with a cliffhanger of sorts. This was another big opportunity that Vince squandered, as Steiner and Goldberg, as well as Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff, were brought in too late to be truly effective. McMahon should have just gone deep into his pockets and brought them all in for the WCW InVasion storyline earlier in the 00 decade. Oh well, it was still fun to see Steiner in WWE for a little while, at least until we realized that he was way past effective between the ropes.
When Taz added an extra “z” to his ring name and entered the WWF at the 2000 Royal Rumble he was a mystery opponent for a young, obnoxious, annoying mid-card heel by the name of Kurt Angle. For nostalgia alone, it was fun to see Tazz breathe some fresh life into the WWF, and remembering Kurt Angle as he once was made 8 years ago seem very far away.
Another former ECW wrestler to join the WWF was Raven, who made an impactful debut at Unforgiven just eight months after Tazz had arrived, interfering in a strap match between the Human Suplex Machine himself and Jerry the King Lawler, assisting Tazz in defeating the King. Raven’s arrival was a good little piece of business, and continued to stir things up just as Tazz had done earlier in the year.
Much more recently was MNM’s debut on SmackDown! in the first edition of Carlito’s Cabana. Although they didn’t come from another promotion (they were in developmental) they made an immediate impact and got inserted into the tag team title picture from the start. They had a solid gimmick, a great look, a decent heel manager, and a cocky attitude. MNM fit nicely into the tag division and were a welcome addition at the time. I enjoyed taking a look back at their debut and remembered the “why MNM is better than the Heart Throbs” column I wrote years ago.
From the “Great Moments” vault (the stuff fans love to relive).
I went through the entire opening chapter of the vaunted nWo angle that propelled WCW to their unheard of success in 1996. Starting with Scott Hall’s first infamous appearance on Nitro, I watched each successive weekly intrusion by he and Kevin Nash, and all the stuff leading up to the “Hostile Takeover” match at Bash at the Beach in Daytona Beach, and then the match itself.
Of course, I followed up with Hogan’s psot-match promo, which at the time was nothing short of jaw-dropping. The Hulkster had been milking the same “say your prayers and eat your vitamins” shtick for years, and his heel turn truly freshened up the character. This entire saga really made it feel like anything could happen in WCW, and it sort of seemed like a hostile force was actually invading the company. It was magnificent booking all around, until they started making all the well-documented mistakes with the nWo and ruining the concept.
Next I took another look at JR’s short lived heel turn and his introduction of the fake Razor Ramon and Diesel, portrayed by Rick “Big Titan” Bogner and Glen “Kane” Jacobs respectively. This was a great companion piece to the nWo stuff, since it was directly related but on the other side of the Monday Night War. WCW’s acquisition of Hall and Nash combined with the outstanding original nWo storyline was a great moment for the Atlanta-based promotion and it left WWF reeling, trying anything and everything to make up some of the ground they were swiftly losing to Turner and Bischoff.
The unfathomable promises JR made week after week about bringing back Razor and Diesel captured crowds’ interest momentarily, until the disappointing debut of Bogner and Jacobs left WWF fans with a bad taste in their mouths, and no doubt a remote control in their hands as they switched from RAW to the then-superior Nitro.
Speaking of great moments in WCW history, I can’t even recall all the phenomenal Four Horsemen clips I watched. Covering everything from membership changes to promos to matches, there’s no shortage of wonderful Horsemen treasure to be found on YouTube, and you don’t even need a map to find it – just a keyboard.
I also rediscovered some classic ECW stuff, including fantastic promos from Steve Austin, Mick Foley, and Heyman himself, the outlandish Raven/Sandman stuff, and some fantastic matches featuring RVD, Jerry Lynn, the Dudleys, Jericho, Guerrero, Malenko, and that other guy. The original ECW lives on in cyberspace, no doubt. I also snuck a peek at the great mic work from Heyman at One Night Stand which included the classic line to JBL about Triple H not wanting to work Tuesday nights. You tell him, Paul!
Another invasion angle, although a far less successful one than the nWo, was the Alliance of WCW and ECW invading the WWF. One of the building blocks of the invasion was the Sara-stalker. After weeks of creepy videos of an obsessed pervert secretly following the wife of the Undertaker, Diamond Dallas Page revealed himself as the stalker of Sara. I’ve always been a big DDP mark, so I was stoked when he tore off the ski mask and sunglasses and cut a very logical promo explaining why he had targeted ‘Taker, and why he chose such a personal attack to do so.
I’m a fellow Jersey Shore product, but the reason I admire Page is that it took so much determination for him to find a back door into the business, starting as a manager and working his way up the card, all the way to World Championship level, counter to the usual way to become a pro wrestler (and I don’t care that he was friendly with Bischoff, Page was a hard worker with a great mind for the business and a fantastic out-of-nowhere finisher). He also overcame his dyslexia and wrote a book I enjoyed, and above all else, I dig his in-ring work. Like many other items I watched over the weekend, it’s too bad his debut was the best moment of his WWF tenure…
This led me to watch a whole lot of InVasion content, including the ECW turn and merger with WCW, the shoot-ish promo Heyman delivered about McMahon, and the twists and turns of Stone Cold as he tried to figure out who he was and why he was suddenly hugging Vince so much, before he changed sides to lead the Alliance against Team WWF.
It seemed I couldn’t avoid the horrendous broken leg Sid Vicious suffered in a match against Scott Steiner at the WCW Sin ppv in January of 2001, so I watched it. Wow. To this day, that one sends chills up my spine and makes me cringe. What a horrible injury, and amazingly, it wasn’t that long before he was back in a wrestling ring. Although I believe he eliminated any aerial maneuvers from his arsenal this time around.
The last entry in this category was an old-school moment from WCCW all the way back in 1983, in which Jimmy Garvin and Sunshine were forced to serve as “valets” to David Von Erich for a day. Classic stuff as Von Erich put the heels to work on his ranch and made them suffer in the heat. Ah, simpler times…
From the “Who Knew?” list (guys who jobbed in WWF before making it big).
In the midst of his short but solid run as an evil manipulator who was also one hell of a skilled athlete and dangerous fighter (WHY did that get scrapped, again?) former WCW World Tag Team Champion Sean O’Haire defeated a member of the J.O.B. Squad by the name of Ken Anderson. Anderson would, of course, go on to become the superstar known as Misterrrrrrrrrr Kennedy! Kennedy. Earlier on an episode of Velocity, Ken Anderson laid down for Lita’s old pal Essa Rios. Now that’s paying your dues!
In a 2005 episode of WWE HEAT, Val Venis had a tough time with a young man by the name of CM Punk. Surprising to me was that rather than a typical C-show babyface showcase, they actually worked a decent little match. Even more surprising was the fact that Punk, working as the heel, took a good amount of the offense and controlled the contest by working Venis’ leg until Val made the Superman comeback after playing face-in-peril. Interesting.
Sometime in what I’d have to guess was 1998 on WWF Shotgun, Taka Michinoku defended the Light Heavyweight Championship against the Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels. I had no idea Daniels had worked “try-out” matches in the WWF, and since I only know him from ROH and TNA, it was odd seeing him wearing a wrestling singlet and sporting a full head of hair. Taka actually kicked out of the Angel’s Wings finisher before ending it with the Michinoku Driver. Fun stuff – they could have made an entire one-hour weekly show for those sort of matches back then, if only they had been willing to train the fans to accept smaller, faster, more agile athletes as serious wrestlers instead of comedy characters or monster fodder.
Back to Velocity for a match that could headline any independent show in the world, as “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson was brought in to work a very good little 7-minute match against James “Jamie Noble” Gibson. I was surprised to hear Ernest the Cat Miller and Josh Matthews acknowledge that Danielson was trained by HBK, and actually calling him “American Dragon”. I don’t remember them putting over the jobbers that much back then.
The match was typical of both these great wrestlers’ skill and abilities, albeit very short, but it seemed oddly out of place on a WWE C-show. It’s too bad – Vince had many of the better indy guys passing through his locker rooms at the time, including AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Alex Shelley, Low Ki, Frankie Kazarian, Paul London, and Brian Kendrick (all of whom I checked out in jobber/try-out matches on YouTube this weekend). Sure, some of them got contracts, but they were never utilized to their full potential.
On an earlier episode of Velocity, Dragon faced none other than John Cena, and I was shocked to see how much of his outstanding wrestling repertoire he was allowed to showcase before Cena finished him off. If he does make the switch to the dark side, I hope he’s allowed to continue using wrestling holds and retain his unique moveset.
Finally, from the “Other” category (other stuff that was entertaining).
I watched shoot interviews by Paul Heyman, Scott Steiner, and the artist formerly known as Jim Helwig. Heyman was Heyman so if you like him you’ll love his ‘Off the Record’ shoot interview, and if you don’t, you won’t. Steiner had to be convinced that moments from his own career history actually occurred, as he asked the interviewer, “I did that? Did you see it? Wow… I really did that?” Of course Steiner seemed like a genius compared to the Warrior, who made it through the first 15-25 minutes of his one-hour interview with relative coherence before taking off in his psycho spaceship for planet Destrucity and never coming back into orbit. For sheer entertainment value, anyone who knows anything about the business will enjoy Warrior’s ridiculous altered memories of how it all went down.
Speaking of the Warrior, I watched his recent match against Orlando Jordan in which he defeated the former US Champion for his Nu-Wrestling Evolution World Heavyweight crown, only to vacate it immediately thereafter. Real normal, Warrior.
One clip I wasn’t expecting to find was a HEAT match between Intercontinental Champion RVD and Kurt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig. This was in 2002 between RVD’s IC title win against William Regal at WrestleMania X8 and Backlash the following month. The match only lasted less than five minutes, but the thing that made it stand out for me was that I simply didn’t remember them both being in the same promotion together at the same time.
I was so astounded by the bulk of quality pro wrestling clips out there that I had to force myself to close the damn thing so I could stop viewing and start writing this column. The next time you’ve got a hankering for the days of yore, you don’t need to buy 200 different DVD sets or subscribe to WWE 24/7; just jump online and have at it. You’re sure to find something fun on the Internet besides porn and advertisements.
Vin Sanity is not categorized as a psychological disorder… yet.
p.s. – “Do what’s right for you, as long as it don’t hurt no one.” – Elvis Presley
