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.
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.
Dean Malenko vs. Chip Minton - WCW Worldwide (1996)
Dean Malenko takes on the "downhill scooter runner" Chip Minton in a Saturday morning squash.
Highlights of this short match include Bobby "The Brain" Heenan commentary and the solid ring work of Malenko.
Minton would later place fifth in the four-man bobsled race at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan and return to WCW much larger than before. Guess he was really ready to jerk the curtain some more.
The Blackhearts vs. Dave Hart & Mike Winner - WCW Saturday Night (1993)
The Blackhearts were a mysterious team to say the least. You may notice that these guys look a lot like another forgettable character that only appeared maybe once or twice in the 90's - The Black Phantom. If you did notice this, I'm really impressed and as it turns out, you would be correct - at least with one of them. See, The Blackhearts were a team made up of Tom Nash and David Heath AKA The Black Phantom AKA Gangrel. I have no idea who's who, but apparently Heath was called Apocalypse and Nash was Destruction. Of course, Jesse Ventura had no idea what their names were here during their debut on WCW television, so they were just referred to as Blackheart #1 and #2.
As legend has it, The Blackhearts, who started in Stampede Wrestling, were the bastard sons of Stu Hart. As for the screeching and weird hand gestures they would do, well, that's all apart of the mystery that was The Blackhearts.
Despite the constant plugging of Raw's 1000th episode last year, we did get to see Heath Slater, the super jobber of the WWE get squashed for a few by returning legends who actually looked in good shape for their age. Albeit there were some segments of rookie Heath Slater versus veteran superstars from the past that weren't all too great (sorry Lauper), but for the most part this was a relatively good concept.
On this particular Heath Slater squashing, the "One Man Band" would take on the returning big man, the man they call Vader - no stranger to this blog. But not only was this Vader's first match on Raw since 2005, no no no, this was Vader's first time seen on TV since before being in a coma for 30 something days in Japan, causing him to lose 112 pounds and to subsequently turn his life around. And while Vader has had countless surgeries on his knees and the rest of his body, he still could move in the ring with the lightweight rookie of Heath Slater.
From wrestling on velocity in 2003 to main eventing Summerslam in 2013 for the World title, here's where it all started. Kinda. It's John Cena taking on the beardless Bryan Danielson (now known as the "YES!" man, Daniel Bryan).
I sure hope Cena brought those banana pants with him!
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.
"Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig vs. Mike Richards - WWF Wrestling Challenge (1988)
Curt Hennig might have had a small run back in the early 80's with WWF, but after jumping ship to AWA and making a name for himself as a top star and title holder, it was only a matter of time before he returned to the federation with a new attitude and the title of "Mr. Perfect".
Of course, Hennig would back up his perfect role not only in the ring but outside of it by doing sporty things perfectly with sporty famous people.
MNM (Joey Mercury & Johnny Nitro w/Melina) vs. Jon Moxley & Brad Taylor - Velocity (2006)
I've been watching the Best of the Indies series, Stories From the Streets: The Jon MoxleyStory by Smart Mark Video and thought I would look up this match mentioned early on in the interviews with Jon Moxley - a man now known as Dean Ambrose. The bout is Moxley's first dark match with the WWE where he tags with his fellow Heartland Wrestling Association wrestler, Brad Taylor (Brad Attitude). In the interview mentioned above, Moxley talks about how excited he was to get a chance to have a try-out match with the WWE and be where the big boys play. During the match you can plainly see just how amped up Moxley was for this little bit of spotlight. The tiniest, really.
All in all, it's not a bad match for what it is: a glorified preliminary match to make the champs at the time, MNM, look strong. But Moxley didn't care about that here at 19-20 years old and was just really in love with wrestling. Also in the interview, which was made pre-Shield/FCW (so, 2011), Moxley mentions that he has no plans of being with the WWE anytime soon.
Now he's already fought the Undertaker and pinned Randy Orton at Wrestlemania.
Bonus: You can pick up The Jon Moxley Story in DVD form from Smart Mark Video dot com. It's actually a three disc DVD that also features 14 Jon Moxley matches from CZW, IWA-MS, IPW, HWA, and wXw.
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.
Oz w/ The Great Wizard vs. Tim Parker - WCW SuperBrawl (1991)
In honor of the new Oz movie coming to theaters near you, I present wrestling's answer to the classic tale of The Wizard of Oz: a young 7 foot tall and very green (both in attire and experience) performer named, yep, Oz.
If you are thinking this is one of those gimmicks where the wrestler behind the old wizard mask and cape was eventually phased out of television and never seen again, you would actually be very, very wrong. Yes, Oz flopped like most of Dusty Rhodes's wildly bad ideas, but the man behind the wizard gimmick actually ended up becoming quite the star in both the WWF and WCW after a few more failed attempts at superstardom. Turns out, Oz is one of Kevin Nash's earliest gimmicks in his first run of WCW.
Kevin Nash, like a lot of other wrestlers around his time, recovered from a lot of bad gimmicks to become big name stars. Nash might be the biggest success story as no one else can say that they had to play the wrestling equivalent of Oz: the Great and Powerful.
Hopefully James Franco will have the same luck as Nash and start getting good roles eventually. And hey, I never said Nash was any better at wrestling after this...
Also, why was Nash's manager Merlin the Wizard? This is a question a see a lot online and something that still baffles me today. Maybe the new movie will explain it...
But probably not.
Kinda fun fact: Timothy (Tim) (Britten) Parker is also the name of a stage actor who played Doctor Dillmond in the Broadway production of Wicked, a musical about The Wicked Witch and other pre-Dorothy Wizard of Oz themes.
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.
Lazor-Tron vs. Tommy Angel - NWA: Jim Crockett Promotions (mid-80's)
Lazor-Tron (also spelled Lazortron or Lazer-Tron or Lazertron or Laser Tron) was a supreme laser-tag fighting machine from another planet (preferably one where laser-tag was much more of a way of life than a recreational activity) who would just so happen to beam himself down to Jim Crockett promotions in the mid-80's.
Of course, today we know that this masked Lazor-Tron was actually Hector Guerrero, Brother of Eddie, Mando, and Chavo Classic, in disguise. Back then though people didn't have a clue who Lazor-Tron was - but they loved him. Despite being a pretty terrible-looking gimmick, Lazor-Tron was actually a huge fan-favorite and crowd pleaser for the most part. Plus, Hector Guerrero was actually one hell of a wrestler; probably the only reason he survived as well as he did.
Unfortunately for Hector and his natural gift of wrestling, it always seemed like promotions just wanted to put a terrible gimmick on him like his Guerrero name wasn't enough. Gees, look at The Gobbledy Gooker... that giant turkey could of actually been a damn good competitor in the ring if Hector and his bird suit weren't canned just after his first night in WWF at the 1990 Survivor Series for having the worst gimmick in the history of worst gimmicks.
Poor Hector. It's okay though, he works for TNA now.
Ouch.
Overall reaction to the match: Oh yeah the match... well other than the fact that everything about this match is trying to put me to sleep and that we are supposed to believe that Lazor-Trons' finisher using his special space-technology arm pads to the chest renders his opponent unconscious, I think this is a fairly decent example of Hector doing the best he could with what he had.
PS: I have no idea what "the protector of the children" business that Tony Schiavone was talking about in the match... maybe when Lazor-Tron was not wrestling, he would play laser-tag with kids from rough neighbors in space! That's the kind of shit heroes are made out of right there...
PSS: Lazor-Tron would have kicked Max Moon's ass. End of story.
Kwang vs. Ray Hudson - WWF Wrestling Challenge (1994)
In yet another attempt to package someone up as something they are not - as the WWF loved doing around this time - management decided to place Savio Vega under a "ninja" mask and send him off as a martial arts specialist, Asian wrestler. And while Vega did the best he could with the gimmick, including the green mist and having Harvey Wippleman in his corner, it just wasn't enough and he was soon phased out.
Phased out to become Savio Vega, Razor Ramon's friend of course.
Also, I'm aware that Savio Vega previously had a sort of "oriental" martial arts gimmick when he was TNT in WWC, but if you look at him there, were he actually got to speak his native language and show his face (just with facepaint on), it's a lot different than just being just dressed up as a ninja warrior with no character of his own.
Anyways, here's Kwang in his first match against a jobber named Ray Hudson according to Jim Ross.
After weeks and weeks of mysterious "Blood Runs Cold" vignettes on WCW, Glacier - a half karate, half pro wrestling Sub-Zero - finally made his over-the-top debut on WCW Pro against the card-playing, bad-better, The Gambler.
Glacier's debut, set back a bit due to the introduction of the nWo, featured blue lights, a circle of light in the middle of the ring for him to pose in, snow, and even an extravagant back story featuring a 400-year-old helmet and many years of "Kung-fu-y". All-in-all, Glacier's real purpose in life was to cross-advertise with the Mortal Kombat TV series, MK: Konquest which aired right after Monday Nitro (a very prestigious honor) on TNT.
Soon after Glacier displayed his amazing martial arts background (the reason "Sugar Ray" Llyod was repackaged by Eric Bischoff) with a few arm-drags and a top rope super-kick, a move we didn't see again until Sid Vicious tried it years later, the cold and calculative Glacier would make his first appearance on Nitro versus Big Bubba Rogers (Big Boss Man) in a feud that began due to Glacier's long-anticipated debut. The feud was scrapped right after Glacier's win on Nitro however and Glacier didn't do too much until the "Blood Runs Cold" angle featuring other Mortal Kombat-looking wrestlers in '98.
Personally, I always thought Glacier came out with his million-dollar entrance, an entrance only rivaled by Goldust's at the time in the Federation, wrestled this one match and never appeared again because there wasn't any room for him when Big Kev and Scott Hall were running the show. Turns out Glacier was around until 1999 and then for one more run in 2001 with Norman Smiley as Ralphus's replacement or something.
Should have named him Iceberg.
I guess Glacier's gimmick was so big it couldn't just be canned right away... Like The Great Khali.
Ted Dibiase's Undertaker vs. Mike Bell - Raw (1994)
Not too soon after Undertaker's demise at the hands of Yokozuna (with the help of Mr. Fuji's men of course) in the casket match at the 1994 Royal Rumble, The Undertaker would again resurface by his new manager, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase. This Underatker was a little different than the last time we saw him however as he was now being controlled by money rather than the power of The Urn.
Eventually Paul Bearer would bring back the real Undertaker, now donning a sweet purple and black look, to destroy this impostor 'Taker and once again be WWF's only dead man.
Before The fake Undertaker or "Underfaker" took on The real Undertaker at Summerslam, he beat up a few jobbers on Raw to prove that he was definitely not the real Undertaker.
Mike Bell is the victim in this early sighting of The Underfaker played by Brian Lee who later wrestled as Chainz in the Disciples of Apocalypse (with a biker look before The real Undertaker did that too) and also as that guy who was pushed off a scaffold onto a dozen tables in ECW.
Mike Bell also wrestled in ECW under the nickname "Mad Dog". Bell can be seen in the film, Bigger, Faster, Stronger a documentary about drug and steroid abuse - a problem Bell had that led to his death at age 37.
For Lee, the whole Undertaker deal didn't work out after Summerslam, but he did get to play The Undertaker in a Bollywood film called Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi where he "kills" Crush (Brian Adams) in a wrestling match on top of a building(?).
I've also heard that Brian Lee is Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway's real life cousin and that he once had an affair with Calaway's first wife. Whether or not the latter is true, Lee is a real life cousin to the Harris Brothers (who also wrestled in DOA along with Crush no less).
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.
The Christmas Creature vs. Trey Keller - USWA (1992)
Before Glenn Jacobs found the perfect role for himself as "The Big Red Machine" Kane, this 7 ft tall individual had many unsuccessful and forgettable gimmicks including: Isaac Yankem D.D.S. (yes, the evil dentist) in WWF, "fake" Diesel (as WWF owned the rights to Kevin Nash's 'Diesel' character in the early 90's and could do whatever they wanted with it), and Bruiser Mastino (a WCW jobber). Jacobs even began his career as "Angus King", the name of my home state of Maine's senator-elect... But none of these personas can possibly hold up to the bad taste that was "The Christmas Creature".
The Christmas Creature was a gimmick given to Jacobs while he was with Jerry Jarrett's Memphis-based rasslin promotion, United States Wrestling Association (later owned by Jerry Lawler). And while Jacobs would eventually hold the companies' Heavyweight title in 1997 as the masked Doomsday, this first little stint as the red, white, and green tinseled-monster, was not as successful. I mean, he wins his match shown above against Trey Keller, but overall this whole evil-looking wrestling Christmas present has to be one of Jacobs' worst gimmicks to date.
Overall reaction to whatever this was: USWA was a development company that experimented with a lot of bad gimmicks. Gimmicks such as Ninja Turtles, Freddy Kruger, The Spider, The Candyman, and even Spellbinder (better known as that magician named Phantasio who only appeared once in WWF - he actually did fairly well in USWA). With that being said, it's no wonder that this creature from Christmas past was thought up and thrown together like so. For the other stuff that goes on before the Trey Keller squash - including Brian Christopher (AKA Grandmaster Sexy AKA Jerry Lawler's son) yelling about who-knows-what this week and Bert Prentice kicking Santa's fanny, well, this was USWA remember; there wasn't a whole lot of time or room for explanations.
