Great Muta vs. El Gigante - NJPW Fighting Spirit: Day 8(1995)
Yes, El Gigante, better known as that guy with the furry body suit, Giant Gonzalez took on one of the greatest Japanese wrestlers of all time, the Great Muta. The match includes El Gigante performing no real offense, Muta standing on a chair to spew his green mist in Gigante's face, and a very awkward looking finish to one odd match-up.
Greg Valentine vs. Kendo Nagasaki - No Rope Barbed Wire Deathmatch - BJW (1995)
It may seem surprising at first that Greg "The Hammer" Valentine would be found here fighting in a Japanese deathmatch in one of the most violent Japanese deathmatch promotions, Big Japan. But if you really think about earlier Greg Valentine (before the jet black hair, Rhythm & Blues days), Valentine was just out to hurt people. John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats made a great point about Greg Valentine during an intro to his live song, "Song for Greg Valentine" where Darnielle describes Valentine as a wrestler more out to break his opponents' legs and cripple them than to win matches. Which is pretty awesome, by the way.
That being said though, this is not the Greg Valentine that fought Roddy Piper in a brutal dog collar match or tried to end "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin's career, this is a miserable shell of a man who happens to be fighting in a Japanese deathmatch. Thus, this match really suffers because of it. Granted this match is still violent and features all the goodies that you would expect in a deathmatch like barbed wire, brawling through the crowd, and that red wet stuff, it's very slow and with little to no drive. No one breaks their legs, no one gets crippled, no nothing.
Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels - Intercontinental title ladder match - Summerslam (1995)
Since today is Night of Champions (an "all WWE titles on the line" themed PPV) and the IC title will not be on the line, I've decided to post a match where it is. I'm not gonna complain about how the prestige of the Intercontinental Championship is lost today and the man holding the title right now - who happens to be the son of one of the greatest IC champion of all time - is on the card and not even defending it. I'm just gonna watch this match instead.
Along with this match being for the IC title, it was also a ladder match. And while ladder matches were still relatively new in the WWF, this was already Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels' second ladder match together. These two had climbed for the title earlier that year at Wrestlemania X. Compared to a lot of ladder matches we've seen over the years, this one may seem pretty tame - especially since the high spot was an addition of another ladder - but this match is really what set the bar for those ladder matches to come. It also set the trend for ladder matches at Summerslam. Look it up: there's a lot.
Say what you want about the two men in the ring, they worked amazingly together and were looking to steal the show. Granted, stealing the show from Diesel and Mabel doesn't sound too hard, they still stole it nevertheless.
Editor's note: There was an IC title match after all. It was added last minute to kill time and gave Kofi Kingston something to do since he was on the poster.
Waylon Mercy vs. Bill Weaver - WWF Superstars (1995)
Waylon Mercy, played by a former NWA/WCW and WWF wrestler, Dan Spivey, was a character inspired by Robert De Niro's Max Cady character from Scorsese remake of Cape Fear. The character would be Spivey's last run in WWF as well as wrestling all together due to the built-up injuries that he had sustained through the course of his 20 plus year career. Spivey as Mercy only lasted a few months with one PPV appearance and a few semi high profile matches with Bret Hart, Diesel, and his former American Starship partner, Scott Hall.
The character of Waylon Mercy may be long since gone and went, but the wrestling portrayal of De Niro's Max Cady persona now lives on in Bray Wyatt, who is soon to make his debut in the big leagues with his "family" any day now.
Tekno Team 2000 vs. two jobbers in short-short jean shorts - WWF Monday Night Raw (1995)
Raw Debut:
Unlike my favorite 80's tag team from the year 2002, New Breed, The futuristic team of Troy and Travis, Team Tekno 2000 where definitely meant for their time. Not meant for any time for that matter.
The way I look at it, the team of Erik Watts and Chad Fortune weren't bad because they were from the future, the future being five years away, they were bad because they just didn't make sense. They weren't giving quirky speeches about riding on their future scooters or Dusty Rhodes being president in five years; they were just two guys, one being the son of Bill Watts and an already somewhat known wrestler, who had another random gimmick and didn't do anything with it. I mean, what was their story? Why did they come back to the past to wrestle the worst tag teams WWF could whip up? Were they trying to sell techno music to kids because techno music was huge in 2000? Clearly not because they spelled it wrong. Were they trying to tell us all the cool things computers can do other than porn and how it all didn't blow up once 2000 hit? Not even that! All this questioning really makes me wonder if they were even from the year 2000.
If only they were really from the future, then we would have had a wrestle who once had somewhat of potential but never went anywhere, Erik Watts, and a monster truck driver, Chad Fortune. Yep, Chad Fortune is now a monster truck driver... a superhero monster truck driver! Now that's a gimmick for you!
Chad Fortune currently drives the Captain America Monster Truck. He previously drove the Superman truck as well.
Erik Watts's only claim to fame these days is that he is still alive.
Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis - Super J Cup (1995)
Today's match is probably the best example of a Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis match out of the hundreds, maybe thousands, that have taken place. It comes from the second Super J Cup hosted by Wrestle Association R as an exhibition match to show the Japanese crowd just what these two young athletes were capable of.
I definitely believe it's the best example of both the technical and high-flying wrestling skills these two could easily bring to the table when they faced each other as well as the fact that Rey and Psicosis brought their show to a very quiet and respectable crowd which put pressure on every single move and hold they would make.
As the match picks up and Rey and Psicosis start to really pull out some high risk maneuvers such as Psicosis's scary-looking suicide dive to the outside or Rey Mysterio's super-high top-rope asai moonsault, the crowd starts to show some true excitement towards this little match before the Super J Cup tournament (won by Jushin Liger). You can tell that the audience had not seen such lucha libre, fast-paced style wrestling before and were really eating it up.
After watching multiple Rey Myserio Jr./Psicosis duels they soon begin to look like a choreographer dance by two long time opponents. I'm not saying this good or bad but you can tell just by watching these two masked stars from Mexico go at it that they have had a lot of matches together and complement each other's styles like no one else. It probably also helps that both Rey Mysterio Jr. and Psicosis were trained by the same person... Rey's uncle and original bearer of the Rey Misterio name, Rey Misterio Sr.
Tommy Dreamer w/Luna Vachon vs. Vampire Warrior - ECW (1995)
Sometime after Luna Vachon's departure from WWF in 1994, crazy Luna surfaced on ECW as Tommy Dreamers' valet during his long-running with Raven (who also worked in WWF around the same time Luna was there). Things started to get really semi-crazy though when the real life husband of Luna Vachon, David "(pre) Gangrel" Heath showed up and demanded to take Luna back from Dreamer. Heath, not yet know as that guy with the Seinfeld shirt that spat blood everywhere, appearing in ECW as Vampire Warrior would take the fight to "The Innovator of Violence" all over the ECW arena - providing Dreamer to grab weapons that fans brought to the show to use and so neither of them actually had to rassle.
Though Tommy Dreamer gets the win with the DDT off of a chair and Vampire Warrior seemingly doesn't get his wife back, this was not the last time Heath would be seen in ECW. As far as wrestling matches go for Heath in ECW, I have only seen one other match featuring Vampire Warrior... It was a match he tagged with Dudley Dudley (the only pure-Dudley in the family) against the team of The Steiner Brothers. I also want to say that this was not Vampire Warriors' debut match in ECW; his first match actually being against Hack Myers.
I also meant to throw in a "Dark Phantom" joke in there somewhere but lost steam.
Oh well... Here's Luna's husband at the time taking on Tommy Dreamer in classic ECW fashion.
During his short-lived World Championship Wrestling career in 1995, Sabu faced a few cruiserweghts here and there, one of which being Jerry Lynn who was masked for some reason and only wrestled under his initials. I'm not sure why Jerry Lynn had to keep his identity so secret while in WCW but it was a damn good thing he was wearing a mask for this match!
Reason being that Sabu was accompanied by his Uncle, The (original) Sheik for this match at Halloween Havoc and The Sheik had a little trick up his sleeve. That trick being a fireball shot right in JL's face, an effect that no one except The Sheik himself (if that) knew was going to be performed!
Along with the fireball incident, this match is also known for the fact that The Sheik breaks his leg after being on the receiving end of Sabu's asai moonsault. Sabu also hit Lynn but for some reason The Sheik , Aladdin sword and all, happened to walk right behind Lynn as Sabu was coming off the ropes.That's why you see The Sheik wobbling around the ringside area as he sets for the fireball immediately following Sabu's unbotched win.
Xanta Klaus vs. Scott Taylor - WWF Superstars (1995)
I couldn't think of a better match than "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase's desecration of Santa, Xanta Klaus (Balls Mahoney) taking on Scott Taylor - later known as Scotty 2 Hotty!
If you have yet to witness Xanta Klaus in action, I highly recommend you check out this match! I also posted it on my regular blog, Nostalgia For Tomorrow for my 12 days of NFT Christmas special!
This is proof that Balls Mahoney could actually do more than bash people over the head with steel chairs at some point in his career along with playing Santa's evil brother from the South Pole!
Another fun fact is that my swim coach back in high school also coached and was Scott Garland's (Scott Taylor/Scotty 2 Hotty) gym teacher back in the day. Garland was born and raised in Westbrook, Maine - not too far from where I live.
Harlem Heat vs. The Nasty Boyz - WCW Uncensored (1995)
WCW's Uncensored PPV was a lot like WWE's Extreme Rules PPV today; there was no blood, it wasn't extreme, and most of the time it was a big mess.
This falls count anywhere tornado tag team match between The Nasty Boyz and Harlem Heat along with Sherri, is one of the messiest matches in WCW history. Messy meaning like literal messy...
Like food fight messy.
This match starts out as any tag team match with no illegal man or tagging in would, but as soon as the fight is brought outside the ring and eventually to the concession stands, things get a little "uncensored". WCW's idea of uncensored at the time though was to see how much damage two teams could do to food, lemonade stands, and themselves.
Overall reaction to the match: This match is somewhat reminiscent of the concession stand matches that wrestling companies would have back in the territory days... because, you know, who wouldn't want to see a bunch of grown men beat each other with funnel cakes, cotton candy, stale pretzels, and mustard? Truthfully I actually had an action figure playset that revolved around this kind of activity... but that is neither here nor there. What is here is one hell of a messy match. At one point, the 'concession area' starts to get very slippery after some type of liquid is spilled on the ground and begins to wreak havoc on the two teams as well as Sherri who actually takes some pretty painful bumps as she - along with the everybody else - can barely stand or move around without slipping.
Then the match just ends.
Things get so disorganized that the camera misses Brian Knobbs pick up a pin fall on Booker in either the pop corn or funnel cakes area!
Despite all this, along with Stevie Ray almost pulling his groin multiple times and HH's uniforms getting so trashed they could never be worn again, this match was awarded runner-up match of the year in 1995 by Pro Wrestling Illustrated... the punchline to this whole ordeal!
