Match of the Day - Jerry Lynn's WWF debut

Jerry Lynn vs. Crash Holly - Light Heavyweight title match - WWF Sunday Night Heat (Backlash pre-show) (2001)

In honor of Jerry Lynn, one of the most underrated workers in wrestling, calling it quits for real this time last Saturday night, here's a little gem of him during his short stint in WWF after making a name for himself in ECW...

In Jerry Lynn's first match on WWF television, the New F'N Show challenged Crash Holly for his Light Heavyweight belt. And won.

Crash Holly, an already 11 time Hardcore champion by this time showed that he could also wrestle without weapons (or his cousin Bob) as he held his own pretty well in this precursor to the Cruiserweight Division in WWE type match. Unfortunately for Crash however, Lynn got the better of him and ended his one time reign as Light Heavyweight champ via a quick roll-up and a little help from tights.

Lynn would go on to hold the title from April until June of that year before dropping the belt to Jeff Hardy on Smackdown! Lynn didn't get much air-time on WWF other than that and some dark matches and matches on Heat with Rob Van Dam (who he has had countless solid matches with) and even a young debuting Chris Daniels.

Props to WWF for letting Paul Heyman talk up Jerry Lynn during this match - including amention of Lynn's early feud in GWF with "X-Pac" (who was The Lightning Kid at the time) in the early 90's.

Bonus: In Jerry Lynn's retirement match facing off against Horace the Psychopath, JB Task, and Sean "X-Pac" Waltman, Waltman supposedly tore open his anus performing his signature Bronco Buster. I shit you not! It's even on Wikipedia... check it out.

Spectators had no idea that Waltman was hurt; they thought that he was crying after the match because Jerry Lynn is now retired.

Match of the Day - Masked Team of Snow/Credible take on Heel 1-2-3 Kid and Sid

Avatar & Aldo Montoya vs. 1-2-3 Kid & Sid - WWF Superstars (1996)

For the first time ever, The Portuguese Man O' War, Aldo Montoya - later Justin Credible - teams up with Avatar, the first airbender - later Al Snow - against The Money Corporation's freshly turned heel, 1-2-3 Kid and not so psych, vicious or justice, Sid.

Both Al Snow and Justin Credible (PJ Polaco) would have very unsuccessful gimmicks at this time in their career which led them to seek success in ECW. Why didn't their masked characters work out, you  ask? Let's just say that while The Portuguese Man O' War sounds kind of badasss, it's actually a name of a jellyfish, a not so badass jellyfish either. Oh yeah, and that their costumes were a little ridiculous at this time. Remember that this was the beginning of the transition period for WWF - when flashy gimmicks and colorfully characters were no longer making it and new, realist, "attitude" characters were soon to be taking over.

They weren't the only characters begging for a realist makeover, though. No, most of the wrestlers in this video were eventually stripped of their ill-fated gimmicks and given a much more real, or at least workable, persona. For example, "The Ringmaster", who was said to appear later in the program, became, of course, Stone Cold; The rooted-teeth dentist, Isaac Yankem D.D.S. who would become the replacement to Diesel ironically as well,  later became The Undertaker's burn-victim brother, Kane; Even Skip from the Bodydonnas would eventually lose the "yeah, I lift" 90's get-up and become himself, Chris Candido, later on in ECW.

Whether or not Aldo Montoya and Avatar were meant to be, I sill think they made a cool tag team. I'm not sure if they made anymore appearances together, but I think it would have kept their characters alive for a little longer if they stuck together...

P.S. Avatar and Aldo's double flipping clothesline was way cool! What a maneuver that was.