Battle Kat vs. Bob Bradley - WWF Wrestling Challenge (1990)
I guess you could say that Battle Kat's TV debut against jobber, Bob Bradley was less than purrfect, as Mr. Kat (played by Dean peters) never made if much further than this match and one more on Wrestling Challenge defeating Paul Diamond.
Still, I always wonder what could have been of the almighty Battle Kat.
Fun(ish) fact: Dean Peters previously played Brady Boone, a character that was originally the cousin of Billy Jack Haynes in kayfabe.
Tiger Mask II & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Samson Fuyuki - AJPW (1990)
I was doing a little research on the Tiger Mask character and I came across this gem of a match. It features Tiger Mask II teaming with Toshiaki Kawada against Kawada's former tag team partner, Samson Fuyuki (AKA Ricky or Kudo Fuyuki) and Yoshiaki Yatsu. During the match, Tiger Mask II responds to Fuyuki and Yatsu's strikes and constant headbutts by firing back a more aggressive arsenal on Yatsu, which is followed by Tiger Mask instructing Kawada to remove his mask. The removal of the tiger mask revealed the of face of Mitsuharu Misawa, who then went full-on assault mode on Yatsu, leading to the two men spilling out onto the floor and almost brawling into the crowd!
While the crowd quickly recognized Misawa, who had been under the tiger mask for almost 6 years, Misawa was not the icon of Japanese wrestling that we think of today. Thanks to this match and the unveiling of the tiger mask however, Misawa would go on to shine as one of the greatest wrestlers in Japan with dozens of championships under his belt, multiply matches of the year, and over twenty legitimate 5 star matches.
As for the Tiger Mask legacy, the rights to the character (based of the character from the Manga series) would be picked up by New Japan Pro Wrestling and given to Koji Kanemoto in 1992.
Mean Mark w/ Theodore R. Long vs. Johnny Ace - NWA/WCW Capital Combat: The Return of Robocop (1990)
Who knew that all three of these men would still be around and even employed by WWE in the year 2012? Two of whom would have their own separate teams in a Survivor Series-style elimination match at WrestleMania XXVIII while the other would win his 30th WrestleMania match, the longest streak of its kind in WWE!
Who knew that Mark (pre-Undertaker) Calaway would be the last person to face Johnny Ace, AKA "Senior Vice President of Talent Operations" John Laurinaitis, in a televised match in WCW? A bout that may have also been Johnny's last televised match ever in the US as, soon after leaving WCW, he went of to wrestle and fine tune his "skills" in Japan with AJPW until his in-ring retirement in 2000.
Johnny Ace would later return to WCW after retiring, but just as a backstage figure with his real name, John Laurinaitis. Laurinaitis would eventually replace Vince Russo and be the head booker for WCW until its demise in 2001.
... And the rest is history.
This match is taken from the Capital Combat WCW PPV that revolved around Robocop saving Sting from the Four Horseman in promotion for Robocop 2 and then disappearing into wrestling folklore. Maybe Robocop will make a return in TNA this year or the next to help rescue Sting from the Aces & Eights to promote the new Robocop remake.
The match also features great use of the Slam-O-Meter, a very scientific metering system that WCW invented to calibrate and calculate the impact of a slam. Mean Mark earned himself an 8.2 on the Slam-O-Meter with his tight-rope elbow drop to end the match and send Johnny packing...
Theme Results:
Final match: Johnny Ace's final televised match in WCW and possibly in the US.
It's the main event. It's a steel cage match. It features Dick the Bruiser as Popeye, Paul Heyman on commentary making Popeye and Gordon Solie jokes, and even a spaceship entrance to top it all off accompanied by the voice of The Shockmaster, Ole Anderson. What more do you want?
This was also the match that ended the Black Scorpion gimmick which, originally thought up by Ole Anderson himself, really had nowhere to go. So, after Dusty Rhodes took over booking in WCW, The American Dream put an end to whole gimmick by putting someone who could really be the man behind the mask after months of impostor Black Scorpions had been running around taunting Sting. I'm not going to give it away if you don't already know who signed up to be the real Black Scorpion but maybe you can figure it out yourself just by watching a little of this match. It's not as obvious as Mr. America (pic) but it's close-ish. Hopefully that flashy robe doesn't give it away after that out-of-this-world entrance too much.
Overall impression of the match: Beginning is crazy. Match is a little boring. Unveiling at the end is super rushed, especially with Good Ol' JR screaming the countdown and just who is under that mask,errr, those masks I mean. In the end though, definitely worth watching.
