Minus-Star Match Reviews: Stevie Richards vs. Tyson Tomko – WWE Unforgiven 2004

“Mere words cannot describe this crime against humanity” – Dave Meltzer. Well, I’m about to try.

2004 was a BAD year for WWE. Once WrestleMania XX ended the company lost four of their biggest stars for one reason or another: Goldberg decided to non-renew his contract, Brock Lesnar quit to pursue football, Stone Cold Steve Austin stopped appearing regularly after ‘Mania, and The Rock went off to Hollywood. With the company lacking in top-drawing talent, panic set in and desperation measures were taken. And as history had shown, when WWE reached desperation territory they tended to rely on shock value and going in…unsavory…creative directions.

Regular viewers of RAW weren’t starved for choice when it came to bad gimmicks and questionable-at-best angles. The show featured regular segments involving Kane impregnating Lita and Eugene the ‘special’ wrestler (who was supposed to be the wrestling version of Rain Man but that interpretation didn’t stick), neither of which set the world on fire.

Then there was Stevie Richards a perpetual lowercarder whose biggest claims to fame at the time were being the leader of the Right to Censor stable and managing KroniK in their one and only halfway important match under a WWE banner. After years of wrestling on C-shows like Velocity, Richards was brought back to rekindle his feud/storyline/program with Victoria…by dressing in drag.

The story

Right before this ‘match’, Tomko was ringside for a women’s title match between champion Trish Stratus (whom he worked for as muscle for hire) and challenger Victoria. After distracting Victoria long enough for Trish to get the win, Tomko put his hands on Victoria, only for the ‘mystery woman’ to attack him from behind and drop him with a DDT.

Moments later, Tomko called “it” out and referred to it as a “crossdressing hermaphrodite” and demanded a match with “it”. The match became official moments later as the mystery woman came out and JR had to pretend like no one know who this person was, which prompted Jerry Lawler to interject, “come on, JR, go along with it”. The way Lawler said that was probably MUCH more nicely than how similar orders were being barked at both of them through their headsets.

The match

This took place on September 12, 2004. It was rated -*** by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer and voted Worst Match of the Year by his readership.

The bell rings and “mystery woman” slaps Tomko, who responds with a big right hand. Tomko rips off Mystery Woman’s blouse and “her” wig flies off. No amount of camera editing or face concealment can hide the fact that this is Stevie Richards. Anyways, Tomko rips off Stevie’s skirt, revealing white underwear beneath which prompts Lawler to ask a question to ask something about “Mr. Winkie” and for JR to groan ‘Good Lord’.

There is general apathy and near silence from the crowd as Tomko rips what looks like toilet paper or a fake breast out of Stevie’s bra and stuffs it in his mouth. Despite Tomko doing some blatant choking, the odd ‘Stevie’ chant can briefly be heard by the two or three people in the crowd who realize they’re too sober to be watching this shit and probably don’t want to go get any because the lines are probably too long.

Tomko does a…facelock? Face stretch? Face wipe? Some kind of gesture on Stevie’s face that looks mildly discomforting as the crowd chants “you suck”. Tomko punts Stevie some as Lawler gets into a brief discussion with JR over whether Stevie is wearing granny panties. Various bubbles of the crowd try random chants just to entertain themselves. Scoop toss slam by Tomko followed by a neck crank. Crowd chants for Stevie. Tomko shuts down an attempt at a comeback with some of the phoniest wrestling punches I’ve ever seen. Stevie tries hulking up and gets maybe seven people to cheer for him before Tomko clubs him down.

Tomko trash-talks Stevie until Stevie throws his wig at Tomko. He misses but the ref goes to remove that ‘foreign object’, which allows Stevie to grab Tomko’s crotch. Stevie launches Tomko head-first into a ringpost and lands a few dropkicks in the corner (while wearing socks, not boots). Stevie goes after the bra that got ripped off earlier for some reason which allows Tomko to hit him from behind and hit his torture rack neckbreaker finisher. Thank God this is over.

Winner after 6:20: Tyson Tomko

Review

Abomination. Disaster. Train wreck. Cringeworthy. Vomit-inducing. Atrocity. The English language is filled with terms one could use to describe whatever the fuck this was. It was six minutes of the worst kind of Vince McMahon-inspired bad toilet humor. It was so bad it made Ren & Stimpy look like Rick & Morty.

Worse, this took place years after its spiritual predecessor Patterson versus Brisco; you’d think the company would’ve learned their lessons from that short-but-memorable fiasco but, no. This lasted twice as long as that fiasco but it went on forever. That earlier one was clearly played for laughs while this was supposed to be taken seriously, at least on the surface of it. That one had something of a redeemable conclusion when Crash Holly ended things by attacking both guys; this ended flatly and felt like the continuation of a feud nobody asked for.

Worse still was that this match lacked any genuine heat or interest. Stevie appeared to be the babyface in this match but he did nothing to endear himself to the audience (those who chanted his name likely only did so because a) they weren’t sober; and b) ECW). There wasn’t the slightest shred of storyline intrigue for this; at least Patterson and Brisco had some funny backstage segments and portrayed their gimmicks as ass-kissing stooges with dedication and gusto. You could argue that Stevie at least tried to portray a deranged woman with some effort but no matter what both guys did in the ring it didn’t work.

Final Rating: -*****

As with the Seth Rollins/Fiend Hell in a Cell match, I welcome anyone out there to give me one good thing about this match. And not “it was short”, or “it wasn’t serious”, but an actual positive quality that you’re willing to stand by.

This was a short and completely forgettable feud but it led to one of the worst matches in modern times. While it was impromptu and booked out of nowhere, it’s still an insult towards the paying audience to demand so much money and return with something that isn’t even worth putting on Sunday Night Heat, much less a PPV.

This was bad enough to make some people say ‘never again’ and mean it by taking their money elsewhere. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that other wrestling companies enjoyed solid success during the 2000s. TNA, ROH, and NOAH alone didn’t have to put in all that much effort to attract new audiences since WWE, through garbage like this, was basically begging fans to go elsewhere. Many of them did, only coming back years later and to be disappointed again.

It’s no wonder so many people these days are singing WWE’s praises or speaking about the company with such optimistic tones: they genuinely feel that, even if things sour for the company, they will never see such unmitigated gobshite as this ever again.

Thanks for reading.