While I would normally honor the new WWE World Heavyweight champ (for more than 24 hours this time), Daniel Bryan for his glorious victory over not one but three former champions last night, I have decided to give the debut of the day to Brock Lesnar... the beast who conquered the Undertaker's Wrestlemania undefeated streak.
I'm not going to say if I enjoyed last night's match or not, but the streak ending was the last thing I thought would happen at Wrestlemania. But it is what it is, "The Next Big Thing" Brock Lesnar is now the 1 in 21-1 among all those other accomplishments he has over the years from Amateur Wrestling to Pro Wrestling to Foot-- to MMA.
Anyways, here's Brock Lesnar's first official WWF/E televised match at Backlash 2002 against Jeff Hardy - winner gets Lita's thongs. Excuse me, I mean the "2014 Hall of Famer" Amy Dumas's thongs.
John Cena vs. CM Punk - Viewer's Choice WWE Championship match - Raw (2010)
The first big match between the WWE champ, John Cena and then masked CM Punk gets hijacked on Viewer's Choice Raw by The Nexus, an eight man gang featuring young upstarts from WWE's developmental territory, FCW as well as all being original contestants on the first NXT program.
While it was not totally chaos, the NXT rookies of the first season really shook things up for a pretty stale product that was WWE at this point. I remember watching this episode of Raw and thinking that something new was upon us. Of course, nothing really happened. The ring gets stripped, Bryan gets fired for chocking the timekeeper with his own tie, and then for weeks John Cena does that thing he always does; he overcomes the odds.
Still, the damage that the Nexus created from their ambush on Raw was pretty impressive for WWE standards. To bad they were pretty much destined to fail once they started feuding with Super Cena.
Theme results
Ring Destruction: Apron skirts ripped off, mat gets exposed, padding torn loose, and the ring ropes are loosened and taken down.
As the title suggests, this is the match where Tajiri, the current Cruiserweight champ at the time, took on Jamie Noble in singles competition with his girlfriend and Tough Enough 1 winner, Nidia by his side. During the match, Tajiri looks to use his Cruiserweight title as a weapon on Noble, but as Nidia tries to intervene by grabbing the title away from Tajiri, Tajiri sprays her in the face with his Asian mist. According to legend, the black mist, which was the mist used on Nidia in this sequence, is said to blind the recipient for weeks.
Eventually, Nidia would get her sight back, but would milk the incident for well over the time she could see again.
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Rikishi - No Holds Bared match - WWF No Mercy (2000)
Almost a year went by where the WWF fans (now known as the WWE Universe, of course) did not see Stone Cold Steve Austin from late 1999 to 2000. The reason for this, in reality, was that Stone Cold's neck injury he had sustained from a botched piledriver in 1997 (which ultimately shortened his career) had worsened, forcing Austin to take some time off to recover. So how did the WWF write off the Texas Rattlesnake from television? Simple. They ran him over with a car.
But who done it? Well, that was a little more complex. As a full time watcher of all things WWF around this time, I was glued to the TV every week waiting to find out just who ran Stone Cold over. And while I had my suspensions (Triple H), I had no idea that the driver of the black car that hit Stone Cold in the parking lot at Survivor Series would be... Rikishi?
Rikishi admitted to taking out Austin almost a year later on Raw after his match that night. But why Rikishi why? Thus, the Rikishi meme was born... 'Kishi admits that "he did it for the Rock" and for all the Samoans who had been held down since the Rock's grandfather was in the business. Rikishi then admitted that, if he had the chance, he would easily run Austin over again!
In Stone Cold's first match to the ring in almost a year, he got his chance at revenge on the man who ran him down.. in a no holds barred, anything goes match at No Mercy in 2000. The match gets so heated that Stone Cold shoves Rikishi in the back on his beat-up pick up and drives him outside where he leaves the 400 pound man in a bloody mess laying on the side of the building. In the final eye for an eye confrontation, it looks like Stone Cold will run his truck into the lifeless Rikishi. But as he revs up the Stone Cold mobile, he instead runs into a police car! The match ends there with Stone Cold getting arrested and put in a police car.
Vintage Austin.
Theme Results
Returner: Stone Cold Steve Austin to get his revenge after being put on the shelf for almost a year via attempted vehicular manslaughter.
May 19th may have been the release date for WWE's first film released by WWE Films that starred Kane as the slasher, Jacob Goodnight, but it was also a date that Kane never wanted to be reminded of ever again. What was so significant about May 19th? Why was it such a traumatic remembrance?
Clearly the date was enough for Kane to turn on his tag team partner, Big Show just for mentioning it. The attack on Big Show, which damaged his eye*, resulted in one of the most dominate teams to split and led to this match at Backlash.
As it turns out, May 19th was the day that Kane's brother, The Undertaker burned down the funeral home which killed his parents and left Kane permanently scarred! So, yeah... pretty heavy stuff.
Unfortunately, the voices in Kane's head did not stop after May 19th had passed that year and it was later revealed that the voices were of impostor masked Kane... an angle that was quickly dropped soon after Drew Hankinson (Festus/Luke Gallows) debuted with a god-awful wig on.
*Kane damaging Big Show's eye was also a little jab at the release of Kane's movie, See No Evil, clearly.
Bart Gunn vs. Billy Gun - WWF Monday Night RAW (1996)
In this gripping brother versus brother bout, we see Billy Gunn in the darker jeans taking on Bart Gunn in the lighter jeans on RAW late 1996.
Though this match looks like the works of a long running feud a la Shawn Michaels/Marty Jannetty Rockers split, the outcome of Bart Gunn inadvertently injuring Billy Gunn's neck (causing the kayfabe wives of both Gunn's to run out of the crowd in hysteria) and pretty much ending the storyline right there dead in its tracks.
The wives were never seen or mentioned again and the Gunn's pretty much were never brothers again. While Billy was taking some time off after getting written off RAW for a while due to this incident, Bart would become "Bodacious" Bart in the new Midnight Express with Bob Holly ("Bombastic" Bob). Billy would eventually return as The Rockabilly which lasted just about as long as The New Midnight Express and the whole NWA invasion storyline.
Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam - Hardcore Title match Smackdown! (2001)
Just four nights after their ladder match at Summerslam (this was back when Smackdown! was on Thursdays), Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam would once again face of for the Hardcore Title. This time around though it wasn't a ladder match, but Jeff Hardy being the uncontrollable showstopper that he is/was, decided that it would be in his best interest to incorporate the ladder for all the fans that didn't watch Summerslam that year. Unfortunately for Hardy, his swanton bomb spot off the ladder onto a table did not pay off for him like it has many, many, many times before. See instead of leading on RVD from the 20 foot ladder, RVD rolls off the ladder leaving Hardy to implode - and I'm serious when I say that so I'm going to say it again - implode(!) the table below with all of his weight and momentum.
Above is an abridged version of this match as the whole versions that are available online are much to grainy to watch. The version shown above best sums up this opening match on Smackdown! in September of 2001 though. Jeff Hardy explodes a table into little pieces with his body.
This is also the third Match of the Day in a row where the contest ends with no definitive hand raised, "you're the winner" outcome as Jeff Hardy was unable to come back from the drop he took onto the imploding table.
All in all, this isn't the best match between Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam, but it is one that is seemingly forgotten.
I'll never forget it though.
PS: If you'd like to check out the very grainy first half of this match, it is worth the watch as it features the old Smackdown! "Beautiful People" and the "this is not PG rated and has flashing lights program" warning. Good times!
The Briscoe Brothers (Jay & Mark) vs. The Hot Shots (Cassidy & Chase) - NWA:TNA (2002)
Here's a little Briscoe Brother action starring 18 year old Jay and Mark Briscoe (no relation to Jack or Gerald Brisco). It also stars Cassidy Riley (or O'Reilly at the time) and Chase Stevens who would go on to work for the TNA full time.
In it we see the very fragile looking Briscoes, who had already been wrestling 2 years (I'm guessing in the backyard or *cough cough* CZW), looking to make a name for themselves in what is said to be their first taste of national TV spotlight, that is, if you can even count NWA:TNA's PPV-broadcast-ed set-up very national TV-like at the time. I know I never heard anything about TNA back in 2002.
No, it wasn't until 2004 when TNA made it to FSN and used a very sports-like approach with the time-clock and all that that they really hit somewhat of a national TV spotlight, but The Briscoe Brothers were neither here nor there by that time. This is really only the first of maybe two other matches The Briscoes would have in TNA, and while I'm no talent scout I can guess by the size and age of this young team that they weren't ready for the major - err, semi-major - leagues just yet.
That's okay though, as dem boys did the best they could with what they had at this time and even took some of the nastiest (and loudest) chokeslams I've ever seen (and heard) via the hands of Malice (remember The Wall from WCW?) who runs in to ruin the match. After this Jay and Mark had another match against a team called Divine Storm and maybe one more before heading back to the indies where they would fine tune their craft as well as mold themselves into a much better, but still pretty ugly-looking, hard-working tag team.
Jerry "The King" Lawler vs. Terry Funk - CWA (Memphis Wrestling) (1981)
First of, Jerry Lawler is a lover of chickens.
This has to be up there as one of my favorite gimmick matches of all time. No fans, no refs, no police, no rules, no winner... just Jerry Lawler versus crazy-since-the-dawn-of-time, Terry Funk.
All Funk wanted was a match one-on-one with The King of Memphis to prove once and for all that Funk is a better man than Lawler (or that he's a yellow pig or something along those lines). So, the Funkster decides to invite Lawler to an empty arena match in the Mid-South Coliseum at 1 o'clock sharp, and while Lawler didn't seem too into it at the time, Lawler would eventually show up - crown and all.
The best part of this angle had to have been Terry Funk cussing-out The King as he was seemingly going to no-show on Funk's invitation. Terry even tries to count-out Lawler, but of course, Lawler had to pull through with Funk's challenge and make his appearance. After all, Jerry Lawer was the biggest name in Memphis at the time, he definitely could not have been seen as "yellow" or, even worse, as a coward!
One of my favorite lines from this match comes from Terry Funk when Jerry Lawler finally arrives and Funk, seeing that Lawler has brought his cape and crown, shouts, "Hey Lawler, come on up here. I'm gonna brake your crown. I'm gonna brake his crown, Lance...".
Unfortunately for Terry Funk however, Jerry Lawler ends up getting the best of him as Funk's plan of blinding The King with a spike made of wood backfires and Funk ends up with his eye poked out (Lawler kicked Funk's elbow with sent the spike right into his poor eye). This terrible turn of events - which Funk rightfully deserved - left the Funkster crying in pain as Lawler fled the scene unharmed with his reputation unscratched.
This is no Flair/Funk five star match, but it damn sure is a classic.
Owen Hart vs. Steve Blackman - WWF Sunday Night Heat (1999)
In an attempt to sort of get fans interested in more mixed martial arts type wrestling such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship where stars like Ken Shamrock and Don Severn were from, a little cage was constructed to contain athletes in a match known as the "Lion's Den".
The original concept for the Lion's Den was that the only way to win was via submission. This would later change as rules for cage matches always seem to in pro wrestling, and the opportunity to win by pin-fall was later excepted - along with weapons.
Dan Severn, serving as ref for this match, is in a neck brace for this match as Owen Hart "dropped him on his head" with the same tombstone piledriver that legitimately broke Stone Cold Steve Austin's neck a year and a half prier. It is later revealed that Severn was not hurt and actually jumps into the den and beats up on "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman - not Owen.
All in all, this is just what I would expect WWF to look like if Vince ever introduced a UFC-side of the company.
Speaking of Vince, Mr. McMahon himself actually fought (I guess that's what you would call it) in one of the other Lion's Den matches against the man who has been in pretty much every Lion's Den match except this one mentioned above, Ken Shamrock.
Here's something interesting, a wCw match taking place on Raw.
This World Heavyweight title main event didn't just happen on Raw because Nitro was full that night. No, at this point in 2001, WCW and all of its talent (the ones still around) was now owner by Vince McMahon who could do whatever he wanted with it. So, before doing away with the WCW name all together and calling the wrestlers still around "The Invasion", or later, "The Alliance" as talent still lingering for pay with ECW and WWF Benedict Arnolds started joining in, it looked like WCW was going to have its own brand inside Raw. At least that's what they made it out be one night in July with Booker T, the current WCW World Heavyweight champion taking on Buff Bagwell in his only appearance on Raw.
To think, if this match didn't get booed out of the building, would we have seen WCW become a brand just like ECW did years later? Ehh, maybe - but probably not. Brands hadn't really been thought up at this point in WWF and I don't think McMahon wanted to give these wrestlers (he had acquired from the AOL Time Warner Buy-out) their own show every week. No TV network wanted that, that's for sure. The whole situation was sort of reminiscent of when WCW decided NWO should be its own separate thing; Thus creating WCW/NWO Revenge (the N64 game) and Souled Out, a PPV originally conceived as an NWO-only event with WCW wrestlers as challengers.
Overall impression of the match: I remember this happening very well actually. At the time, I was a huge WWF mark and seeing WCW talent coming in and having their own wCw logo and apron on the ring really gave me the frights! I mean, I really thought that WCW was going to somehow take over big and powerful WWF and I would have to put up with more of their crap that they tried pulling out of their ass like they did in 2000-2001.
WCW was done. With that being said, I don't think I watched this match the first time it aired - but I did stay tuned for the end when Kurt Angle and Stone Cold Steve Austin (who would later jump ship and join The Alliance themselves) attacked Booker to end this match and the fans misery. No wait! scratch that, I didn't! I think the last thing I remember from this Raw was Austin kicking Bagwell out of the building (literally) while my past self cheered for the fact that I'd never have to see Buffman - I mean Buff Bagwell - or his mom on TV ever again.
Also, Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson make one boring commentating team. That and this match was pretty much doomed from the beginning. Boring, un-WWF, not main event level wrestler, and an all around poor attempt to convince anyone that a WCW reincarnation in the WWF could ever exist.
