JTG vs. Santino Marella - JTG's last match in WWE - Superstars (2013)
It's a sad day if you are a WWE fan/meme enthusiast as "STILL EMPLOYED" JTG got the cut along with the 10 other superstars who were future endeavored by management today.
The final count for JTG's employment with the WWE is 07 Years, 30 days, 00 hours, 25 minutes, 12 seconds. JTG had not wrestled a match on TV since September of last year where he took a beautiful hit from Santino's notorious cobra.
Razor Ramon vs. Paul Van Dow - WWF Superstars (1992)
In honor of Scott Hall getting clean thanks to DDP and his yoga system and can now be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Looks like they'll be renaming it the Scott Hall of Fame... or, more accurately, the Thank You DDP for Saving Jake Roberts and Scott Hall of Fame.
Anyways, here he is as "the Bad Guy" Razor Ramon, oozing machismo for the first time ever on WWF TV.
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.
Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw vs. Bob "Spark Plug" Holly - WWF Superstars (1996)
Before becoming a wealthy Fox News bigwig with a white cowboy hat, John Layfield was a rough and tough cowboy with Yosemite Sam as a manager. The JBL that I'm referring to is Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw, and that Yosemite Sam character I'm referencing would be good ol' Uncle Zeb Cotler.
In Bradshaw's first match in the Fed, the relatively green Texan takes on Bob Holly, who at this point was not called "Sparky" but was no where near "Hardcore". Holly does a good job of getting Bradshaw over while Bradshaw showed that someday, say eight years from this match, he could have a run with the World title.
Bradshaw's time as Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw, while short, had a few high points including his eight second match with Fatu, his gimmick of branding his initials into his opponents bodies after matches, and his strap match against Savio Vega. I guess it's also worth noting that both Bradshaw and Jack Swagger have had Zeb (Dutch Mantel) Colter as managers and both had some sort of anti-immigrant gimmick. See: JBLKicksOutIllegalImmigrants.avi.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Marty Garner - WWF Superstars (1996)
Everything was going well and dandy in this 1996 Hunter Hearst Helmsley match against a ham & egger named Marty Garner to promote Helmsley's match against Jake Roberts in the opening round for the King of the Ring tournament. That was until the "Conneticut Blueblood" delivered his trademark finisher still used on a part-time wrestling basis, the pedigree to put away poor Marty Garner. Garner being the inexperienced rookie that he was mistook the pedigree as something else (like a double underhook suplex or powerbomb) and therefore jumped as if he was going to be lifted up and flipped over. The result: the deadliest looking pedigree of all time!
Marty Garner "fun" facts: He is good friends with Matt and Jeff Hardy as he got his start with them in their North Carolina wrestling promotion, OMEGA as "Cham Pain". He also wrestled as one of the Dupp Brothers in ECW as Puck Dupp and was The Rock's assistant in Walking Tall according to IMDB.
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.
