The Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack (w/missing ear) & Maxx Payne - Chicago Street Fight for the WCW Tag Team Championship - Spring Stampede (1994)
Another one of those Nasty Boy street fights that goes out into the merchandise stand. According to WWE.com it's one of the best WCW matches of all time. What makes it better than the other street fights like this one in 1994? Was it Cactus & Payne? Was it the sheer brutality for '94? Was it the stiffness? Was it the table spot?
Maybe it was the Cactus Jack bump in perfect Mick Foley fashion (that has been well documented on this site) at that end there - from the ramp to the floor - before getting whacked in the head with the shovel against his missing ear (Cactus lost it a month prier in German in his infamous match with Big Van Vader).
I didn't know the Nasty Boys were from Maine... It's spring time and they're still using snow shovels.
Norman Smiley vs. Brian Knobbs - WCW Mayhem (1999)
In the height of hardcore wrestling in the mainstream, WCW tried to cash in on this new brand of weapon-based wrestling like WWF had successfully done by creating their very own hardcore division. And as the hardcore division was a great way for wrestlers who couldn't really wrestle to prove themselves in a Mick Foley sort of fashion, wrestlers like Brian Knobbs, Hardcore Hak (Sandman in WCW), 3 Count, Crowbar, Carl Ouellet and many others finally had a purpose in life.
So, what better person to win the title during the official crowning match at Mayhem 1999? Fit Finlay? Nope. Hak? Nah. Terry Funk? Not yet...
Turns out it was Screamin' Norman Smiley, the flamboyant, Santino Marella of the late-90's/early 2000's (since he also appealed to kids), wiggly black wrestler who always wrestled in different sports equipment (this match in particular as a Toronto maple Leaf hockey player). I guess that was his thing, I don't remember. And by his thing, I'm talking about the sports equipment gimmick...
Norman Smiley, the unlikely suspect for the hardcore division, actually became the first WCW hardcore champion after defeating Nasty Boy Brian Knobbs thanks to Jimmy Hart who hit his own Managee with a trash can as he was coming out of an elevator backstage. Silly as it may seem though, did it really matter who was hardcore champion at this point? It was already a gimmick division and was already being perfected by WWF anyways.
I still think these sort of hardcore matches are fun to watch regardless of how dumb they may look in retrospect. WCW's hardcore division is still better than watching people whack each other around with fluorescent light tubes any day...
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!
