Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week I have a lot of Dead Guy Tributes for you! Starting off, we have Eddie Guerrero vs. his older brother Hector… from NITRO in 1997! Yeah, I don’t remember this at all! Hector comes to teach his heelish little brother a lesson about family values, in hot-blooded Guerrero style!
Next up we have more in my tribute to Terry Funk… in a Hardcore match on Nitro against The Wall! Yes, we’re back into the weird story of The Wall of all people getting a big of grassroots leading to a push that went nowhere. And I contrast The Wall’s no-selling in THAT match with Bill Goldberg’s in the following, as he takes on the Flock’s big man, Reese! Now THERE’s some fantastic use of no-selling, which is harder than it looks!
Then it’s more of The Best of Ted Arcidi, as we travel to 1987 WCWA and “Maniac” Matt Borne defending the Texas Heavyweight Title and actually making the best out of a useless opponent! And finally, it’s a tribute to “Superstar” Billy Graham… via his last big WWF match, where “The Natural” Butch Reed merks him.
EDDIE GUERRERO vs. HECTOR GUERRERO:
(WCW Nitro, July 22nd 1997)
* A fascinating match I don’t remember, as Eddie takes on his older brother, 13 years his senior. There’s a lot of family resemblance, though Hector is pasty and flabby by comparison, with these sparkly ’80s trunks that don’t fit right. Eddie’s still in his babyface tights (the white with the red symbols), but has dropped the singlet top, just having turned heel.
Hector evades Eddie and catches him with some headscissors, but Eddie throws boots at him and lures him into another beating. But they fight over an abdominal… no! The Rolling Cradle! Hector rolls him around as the poor ref actually has to move his ass to get out of the way (the chubby guy can do it, too!), and Eddie literally BITES free, Hector screaming in pain repeatedly. Eddie beats on him, but charges into the corner and takes a superplex for two. A weird Hector turning splash gets two and Eddie goes to the eyes, but Hector tosses him and hits a big Vader Bomb off the apron in a weird landing (he ends up below Eddie on the fall). But Eddie kicks the ropes right into Hector’s ballsack, and that sets up a powerbomb into the Frog Splash for the win at (3:45). Dean Malenko comes down to get some revenge for Eddie costing him the U.S. Title, beating his ass and hitting a powerbomb into the Texas Cloverleaf. Hector, having recovered, sticks up for Eddie and demands Dean let him go, then slugs away as Larry Z is all “I told you the Guerreros are nuts!”- Eddie shoves Hector into a backdrop suplex and Dean puts the boots to him while Eddie just looks at it and gives that classic Eddie smirk and walks away, leaving poor Hector to eat a beating. Hahaha what a slimeball piece of shit.
Rating: *1/4 (Super-short match, with Hector having an interesting-looking old-school moveset that looked kinda odd in the Cruiserweight style of the time, but it was okay)
WCW was such the drizzling shits at this point that guys like The Wall were getting a groundswell of support while the WWF was on the biggest hot streak ever.
WCW HARDCORE TITLE:
TERRY FUNK vs. THE WALL:
(WCW Nitro, April 17th 2000)
* Yes, WCW had given up SO MUCH that by this point they were putting a 55-year old man up against a bodyguard wrestler who could barely work as the opener of Nitro. Funk was the WCW Hardcore Champion at this time, as they were aping any WWF thing they could find. The Wall debuted as a silent bodyguard for Alex Wright’s “Berlyn” character, but Berlyn was flubbed good and early and “silent badass who hits one cool move” is oddly one of the more reliable ways to get a guy over in wrestling, and so we had our push for this scrub who was just a below-average big guy. He’s in black slacks and a wifebeater here, and has got a fair few inches on Funk.
The Wall immediately leans in to be decked with a chair, but he is so bad at working that he can’t even NO-SELL right, first wobbling like he’s going down but then just standing there with a blank look on his face. I mean Goldberg wasn’t any great shakes as a worker but HE knew how to no-sell a chairshot right and look like a huge bad-ass! So Wall just ignores a trio of chairshots and dumps Terry, but a Flair Uppercut turns the tide and some chairs to the back work the big guy over, then Terry hits the worst Orihara Moonsault I’ve ever seen, hitting with maybe his ankle and eating shit on the landing- both guys sell that until Wall recovers first and throws a chair and piledrives Terry onto the announce table. Wall slowly works him over (grinding him with the guardrail), and Terry does one of those great cartoonish wild swings after getting chaired again, but Wall clobbers him with the cage-door of a ringside stripper-cage. Terry’s about cooked, but then two tables fly in from off-camera and crush the Wall- Terry stomps on one and pins The Wall underneath it at (5:00). Well this was Russo & Bischoff writing so obviously that angle probably paid off in logical, amazing manner.
This was more of a “random fight” than a match, with the whole “Hardcore” criteria just being chairshots and slowly walking around ringside for the most part. Terry takes a crazy bump, gets his ass kicked, and then something from offscreen lets him retain. Terry didn’t even do much in the match aside from his crazy old man moonsault.
Rating: * (just a slow beatdown from The Wall with a couple big moves)
I try to be a proper wrestling snob sometimes, but one of my favorite things remains Goldberg squashes.
WCW UNITED STATES TITLE:
GOLDBERG vs. REESE (w/ Horace):
(WCW Thunder, June 18th 1998)
* Hell yeah, it’s time for GOLDBERG MURDERING GUYS! Goldberg has won the US Title from Raven not long before this, and Reese, Raven’s biggest goon (dressed in his goofy early ’90s grunge get-up, mimicking Raven exactly despite being huge), is being sent against him. Goldberg’s incredibly over by this point, and looks like the baddest motherfucker in the world standing in a sea of sparks, gets all twitchy and punches the air to show how he can’t even wait to kick some ass, and promptly gets in the 7-foot monster’s face and SHOVES him before the match to establish himself physically right out of the gate.
Goldberg immediately muscles the 400-pounder into the corner to the point of putting Reese on his knees, but Reese clubs him on a dirty break and Horace uses the ref admonishing him as cover to wallop Goldberg with a huge stop sign. Which Goldberg immediately no-sells by punching the stop sign right back into his face. haha he won’t even sell weapon-based interference, and that’s what made him stand out so much as this huge bad-ass babyface. And then Reese hits this big hanging vertical suplex and Goldberg pop up and readies himself for the SPEAR SNAP JACKHAMMER, actually hauling up his GIGANTIC opponent for a right, proper, vertical Jackhammer for the pin at (1:16), the crowd completely in a frenzy.
See, THIS is how you no-sell properly. Goldberg practically dares his opponents to hit him, and rather than wobbling over, collapses down… and then springs back up, shaking his head and running in place with excitement, absolutely gearing up to murder them. Taunting them with “is that the best you got?” and then MURDERING them. And hitting the Jackhammer on big Reese was definitely an establishing moment for Goldberg, and is probably what set up his multiple matches against The Giant down the road on his way to the World Title.
Rating: 1/4* (like what can you even do with this? Three offensive moves all match and the fans are acting like they’ve just seen a **** masterpiece. I can’t help but mark out for Goldberg)
TEXAS HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
“MANIAC” MATT BORNE vs. “MR. 705” TED ARCIDI (w/ Percy Pringle)
(WCWA, Dec. 24th 1987)
* Matt Borne (the future Doink) defends his Texas Heavyweight Title against the monstrous Arcidi, now a heel managed by the future Paul Bearer, a slightly-chubby bleach-blond Percy Pringle. Arcidi’s in white tights and Borne’s in like… turquoise trunks that are almost big enough to be shorts. Ted’s got that bloated powerlifter gut going (which is why he wore a singlet most of his career).
They slowly move about the ring, Borne doing the best thing possible with a giant slug who is super-strong- try amateur wrestling and get “launched off”, having trouble with Arcidi’s power. He ducks a swiping clothesline and gets his own, then pops Arcidi with a flying elbow to the head for two, getting tossed off. Borne has one of those weird physiques where he looks really tough or super paunchy depending on the angle- he had the gut as Doink, too. They circle each other repeatedly, unable to get real shots, but Arcidi starts with the clubbing blows, and catches him off the ropes with a clothesline. He works the back and backbreakers him, then tries a bearhug but gets his ears boxed. Arcidi stays on Matt as the heel commentator is all over his mistakes and how his own management is better than Pringle’s. Arcidi with the bodyslam, but the big wind-up elbowdrop misses- Borne heads to the top, but Pringle hooks his ankle with his cane and that’s the DQ at (5:34), Arcidi slamming Borne off the top. They beat Matt down (Ted so tired he can barely move right), but he just leaps up and beats the hell out of Pringle when the referee is getting Ted out of the ring, Arcidi not doing anything to stop it and eventually helping his manager out.
Actually a perfectly cromulent match, which is impressive given how limited Arcidi was. Borne seemed to know enough to bounce around for shots and just do basic things, carrying the match through his selling. It wasn’t long, and half the match was just stalling for them to get into things, but it was fine.
Rating: ** (just your basic everyday TV match- Arcidi hardly looked like the lummox he was in the WWF around this time period, and that’s probably on Borne)
“SUPERSTAR” BILLY GRAHAM vs. “THE NATURAL” BUTCH REED (w/ Slick):
(WWF SuperStars, Nov. 14th 1987)
* Oh yes, I have this workrate paradise for you! A badly injured, washed-up Superstar vs. The Natural (OH HO HE IS BLACK BUT HAS BLOND HAIR, WHICH IS ANYTHING BUT NATURAL- GUARANTEED MONIES FOR THIS HEAT-MAGNET!). Reed has red trunks with stars on his ass while Graham (who gets a REALLY good reaction, and you gotta respect anyone coming out to “Jesus Christ Superstar”) looks like he’s a billion, but has a look that Scott Steiner emulated 10 years later, to give you a hint at how influential this guy was. All the tie-dye hippie shit is way out of date by 1987, though.
Poor Billy hits the ring and is immediately attacked, his leg stuck on the ropes like he’s a crippled old man. Graham writhes and hollers while Reed just destroys him, working over the hip to the disgust of Vince & Bruno on commentary. “Why not?!” points out Jesse- “He knows it’s a weak spot! He knows that’s his Achilles Heel! If Graham can’t take it he shouldn’t be in there!”. Man has a point- that’s why the fans always respected Jesse. Reed spanks his ass with the chair while Slick distracts the referee, and works him over during a One Man Gang inset promo about how great Slick is, but Graham finally punches him coming off the top. His comeback is so bad they cut to the fans during part of it, and right away Slick is on the apron and gets dragged in. Slick begs like a good coward and gets bearhugged, but immediately Gang hits the ring and they destroy Superstar, holding him out for the 747 Splash (DQ at 2:28).
Graham writhes in agony as Jesse’s big concern is “You mean to tell me we’re gonna have to watch one of those bloody operations?” ahahahaha oh my god this guy was the best. Don Muraco comes out for the save, taking Slick’s cane and whupping on the heels until Graham hits the floor, but Reed comes around for more beats while he’s being loaded onto the stretcher, and then Gang hits ANOTHER splash on it- haha, this is terrific. This whole deal was to write Graham out of matches and become Muraco’s manager to try and get some more heat on the angles surrounding this. More an angle than a match- Reed looked good as this merciless heel ass-kicker, just divebombing the guy before he gets in the ring and even cheating to keep him down. Graham looked weak and old (he was over 40 here) and they notably cut away from every single offensive move he did, so that’ll tell you all you need to know.
Rating: DUD (just some stuff that happened)