The Briscoe Brothers vs. Teddy Hart & Jack Evans (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have found even MORE horrible indie matches for your approval, starting with the excellent Briscoe Brothers facing the “Hart Foundation”, which is lifelong fuckup Teddy Hart and future AEW washout and uber-flippy guy Jack Evans! Then it’s a spectacularly awful idea as THE WALL defends his Phoenix Championship Wrestling Title against WWF washout Gangrel as the two slobbily go about a classically “former top company talent in an indie match” bout.

Next up, it’s Rowdy Roddy Piper in the WWF as a peak heel, and he’s up against the Tonga Kid, then a scrawny young man out for REVENGE on behalf of his cousin Superfly Jimmy Snuka! Then I couldn’t find a Mona/Asya match I’d written down but managed to find Madusa vs. Asya, and it’s somehow even MORE stupid and needlessly convoluted than you could possibly imagine a WCW Thunder match could be! Finally, I check out more lucha libre, as I get a look at Atlantis as he takes on the heel Emilio Charles Jr. in a couple matches! The first one disappointed me but I followed a link and found a better one!

THE BRISCOE BROTHERS (Jay & Mark Briscoe) vs. THE HART FOUNDATION (Teddy Hart & Jack Evans, w/ Mike Mendoza & Carmen):
(Jersey All Pro Wrestling, Jan. 23rd 2010)
* WOO! I finally found what I’m sure will be a flippy one! Maybe! I’ve only seen like 1-2 Briscoe tag matches, but Mark is super-entertaining in current AEW. Jack Evans is a dude I’d never heard of until I saw AEW, and I was like “He’ll be a great worker once he gets some experience and learns to sell more and flip less” until someone told me he was a twenty-year veteran, lol. Here, he looks like a small child or a fan who got lost and ended up on the entranceway- he is TINY. Teddy you know- a lifelong fuckup and total mess. Apparently according to the match notes here the Briscoes got noticed in JAPW before moving on to ROH, but periodically returned. This is actually PACKED for an indie, and Hart/Evans are babyfaces. Teddy cuts a profanity-laced promo that basically shits on Ring of Honor for “dropping the ball” on this match, just spamming out F-bombs in lieu of real stuff to say like he’s Shane Douglas or something. Then he declares his “my dream match” and goes to hug the Briscoes like a total dweebus- haha man, they were doing the “I’ve always wanted to wrestle you” angles back then, too? Teddy’s in white/red shorts, Evans is in black/white baggy pants, and the Briscoes are in black shorts. Mark has more hair- Jay has the ’00s douchebag chin goatee.

Mark & Teddy do the “lockup around the ring before release” spot and man, Teddy’s footwork is SHIT- Mark looks like he’s actually trying for positioning but Teddy’s legs are just straight or limp and he’s all hunched over. First lockup and I’m already annoyed at something! Evans is in with FLIPZ (you can see the Blitzkrieg influence, as he’s adding an extra flip or spin to every single motion), standing on Jay and flipping, but moonsaults Jay’s knees. He backflips to avoid a clothesline and is already out, Teddy hitting a powerslam but getting tossed and SMOKING his leg on the guardrail and selling that (the fans thank the Briscoes for hurting him, but they’re obviously working heel so uhhhhhh who’s the babyface here?). Jack comes in for some crazy flips that actually look good, doing elaborate dodges and using the Briscoes’ bodies as pommel horses to enable flip kicks, then uses momentum from a kick to moonsault one and dodge the other’s elbow in one motion, then vault off for a rana to the floor and hits a Sasuke Special. A TINY bit of hesitation in there but for the most part that was really smooth and didn’t look too “assisted”. Teddy adds a quebrada and Evans works Jay over in the ring, but Mark trips him up and he’s hit with a spinebuster. Briscoes beat up Jay, doing a good job of keeping it simple and being disagreeable double-teamers, nailing Teddy and stopping Jack’s comebacks. Evans is only “okay” at selling, though- lots of back-bending arches to sell pain but he’s not acting overly agonized or bumping much. The fans aren’t really into this, either- they came for FLIPZ.

Sadly, after all that, Evans merely gets his boot up and dodges under a Briscoe to hot tag the most hated guy in the match and Teddy’s a house afire, hitting lots of stuff and a flying double-DDT (PHYSICS~!). He powerbombs Jay onto his knees (a regular move of Teddy’s) and lets Evans backflip off his shoulders into a footstomp on Mark. Teddy hits a cobra-clutch back-cracker like he’s trying to remember the steps in his head, but twin Shooting Star Press/450 Splashes see both guys hitting knees. Teddy immediately tries a comeback and Mark has to rein him in, hitting a “YIP!” and doing an Iconoclasm for two (Teddy with the weakest kickout ever- barely looking like he moved). Mark hits a German but Teddy rolls out and Jack… does a stupid excessive number of flips and ends up short of Mark’s superkick, SELLS IT ANYWAYS, and Mark is at least a pro enough to double up with a good one for two. Demolition Decapitation and… the big Mendoza guy pulls Jay off, which isn’t a DQ. With spectacularly bush-league timing, Mendoza weakly shoves Jay and hits a chokeslam while Teddy is just standing WAY too close like a dumbass and Mark has to try and get involved because HE’S right there, but Mendoza just bails. Teddy sells it like he’s mad and gets jumped, but misses a moonsault and eats a double-superkick. The Briscoes try the Doomsday Device on Evans, but he rolls back and handstands into a backslide, Mark pulling him off for a tombstone attempt, but Jack spins out, kicks him, then backslides Jay again for three at (14:39).

Well this fell apart. It was initially some pretty tight flippery (minus Teddy being awful), then a half-decent heat sequence. Evans’ selling is trickier to assess because he’s got the MOTIONS but not the EMOTIONS, sorta- he does great back-arches on landings like a small guy should and flops around to sell (one time pretending to puke?), but doesn’t really act agonized with other body language so it falls kinda flat. At least he didn’t start flipping immediately after the hot tag, but he does that “sell sell sell, time to stand at the ready for his big flip spot sell sell sell” thing. Teddy is routinely in the wrong place for half the match, often standing where he shouldn’t or just ignoring guys and climbing the ropes right in front of them and stuff.

And the whole bit with Mendoza getting involved fell completely flat- the ring was way too crowded, Teddy was basically humping him while he interfered and looked confused instead of horrified, and more. The ring should have probably been cleared for that spot, with Teddy getting in Mendoza’s way and being pushed aside or something. And it didn’t really matter anyways, because Teddy just tries to apologize and the Briscoes recover lightning-fast with superkicks, Teddy’s gone, then Jack suddenly pulls out the win. The interference was unwanted and Teddy didn’t want to take advantage, but they just win anyways? But it’s cuz of Jack’s rollup stuff? Just a weird match. Like they started out with the RnR Express formula then just started doing weird shit. The Briscoes actually looked good, but weren’t going even close to all-out, just doing the basics amidst the weird shit the others were trying and going along with it. They tried to save a couple bad spots, at least.

Rating: *3/4 (it was heading towards **1/2-ville quite easily until they started doing all this bizarre stuff, Jack missed a spot, and the interference and out of nowhere ending)

PCW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
THE WALL vs. GANGREL:
(Phoenix Championship Wrestling, April 5th 2002)
* Sweet! I finally found a Western U.S. indie! And it’s a match that sounds like ABSOLUTE GARBAGE on paper, as Gangrel, semi-recently fired from the WWF, is up against the Wall, a supremely horrible worker that was given a stop & start “Monster” push in the dying days of WCW, where he’d hit chokeslams and pin guys in seconds… but sometimes they’d ignore that and just have him do the job like a regular dude. The announcer here is some guy in casual clothes- blue jeans and a BASEBALL CAP? Seriously, you can’t put your announcer in a suit? Gangrel now has black hair, and a little metal sippy cup instead of his old goblet. His trademark “blood spray” spot happens with a raised basketball hoop as the backdrop- just beautiful indie glory. The Wall is pasty and sloppy, with gross pornstar tattoos, but quite big. Wrestling was so different then- both guys are in their early thirties and are DONE as names and totally washed up.

They establish the basics to start, the Wall shoving Gangrel around and making him bail. Gangrel will have to use his famous technical acumen to win this one! Gangrel throws some punches, but bails after eating clotheslines as the commentary describes the Wall as 6’7″ (lol WHAT?). The Wall hits a bodyslam & back suplex, but they set up a transition and oh noooooooooooooo it’s the dreaded “tries a blind move and it misses and they sell it anyways” as Gangrel stops a charge and tries for a neckbreaker and slips off entirely and the Wall still takes the bump. Commentary covers for it by calling it awkward and saying Gangrel grabbed the hair on the way down. Gangrel huffs and puffs as he throws slow shots, then thankfully hits a resthold for a while, and a back elbow gets two. Choking, choking… and he runs into a boot, eyerakes out of the Chokeslam, but charges right into the powerslam and that’s the three at (6:35). Good heavens that was a quick one. Not even using his finish! Hope those fans enjoyed their 7-minute Title Match. Gangrel didn’t even go for the Impaler or nothin’!

Not exactly a hard-working match, but hey- it’s two washed-up guys wrestling in front of 40 people! They kept it so basic and indie that anyone could have done it (the choking, the “Ask him!” chinlock spot, the tons of Irish whips to back elbows and running into boots in the corner, etc.). Still funny that neither guy hit their real finisher and Gangrel didn’t even go for his- at least work in a boot to the gut and attempt the DDT! But yeah, just a simple night’s work.

Rating: 3/4* (not actively awful or truly a mess but sloppy, slow-paced and kept as basic as could be- it looks like the match wrestlers would use to graduate wrestling school)

ROWDY RODDY PIPER vs. THE TONGA KID:
(WWF TV, Nov. 26th 1984 probably)
* It’s more of the Tonga Kid! This time he’s in black shorts with island-print on them and is REALLY skinny, and his opponent is the WWF’s top heel! Vince puts over on commentary that Piper is “Sour! Sour on life!”, but suggests the Tonga Kid will be paying dues. Tonga is billed as Jimmy Snuka’s cousin, getting revenge for Piper “nearly destroying” the latter.

Piper trips up Tonga Kid from the floor before the bell and just whups his ass, disdainfully stepping on his throat and whipping him to the ropes… leading to the kid ducking him and hitting a crossbody for two! Piper tries to slug it out and gets the worst of that, bashing him into the turnbuckle and NOPE. Piper keeps trying and the kid won’t sell a bit, hitting some big leaping headbutts as Piper goes spasming and flying around, begging off and getting whupped. The crowd delights in his torment, especially when Tonga Kid spreads his legs and stomps RIGHT on his nutsack- okay, lower abdomen, but it was close enough that the fans are seen leaping up and down and laughing at his misfortune. Piper looks like he’s done, but manages to whip Tonga to the floor in a pretty trademark bump for the kid. But Piper comes in with a steel chair and takes a monster swing, hitting onto the corner and getting knocked down- the crowd senses victory for the rookie. Flying Headbutt! Piper twitches and convulses with his best hysterics, and then Tonga grabs the chair and absolutely BEATS THE EVER-LOVING SHIT out of him with it, raining blow after blow to a huge reaction until Greg Valentine and other heels run out to stop him! Haha that gets a DQ at (3:42) but the crowd LOVVVVVVVVVVVVED it- Piper got everything coming to him and more and the match didn’t even need a finish because the point was revenge. Piper pops up (lol he’s no-selling SEVEN chairshots?) and tries to throw a kick to him but gets his face stuffed into the mat again and the heels have to pull Tonga off of him.

Rating: ** (fast-paced and super-short but ULTRA hot and Piper’s bumping is hilariously goofy and perfect for the kind of asshole heel he represented)

WCW CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE:
MADUSA (w/ Spice) vs. ASYA:
(WCW Thunder, 01/06/2000)
* Oh yeah, I dove into the depths of THUNDER for this one! This has “Russo” written all over it, with Madusa holding the men’s Cruiserweight Title, sporting giant implants and one of the Nitro Girls as a random valet, while the other girl is just a gigantic ripoff of someone Russo was writing in the WWF, “Asya” being an obvious riff on “Chyna”, with an even more muscular woman. It’s a very “Russo” thing to have a completely forgettable act openly ape one of the popular, successful acts from his old company (see “Buzzkill” vs. “Road Dogg”), with like… nothing added to it. It’s obviously a REFERENCE to Chyna, but she doesn’t actually make fun of Chyna or do any Chyna mannerisms, so the entire thing is no more in-depth than a name joke. See: Buzzkill just turning into a hippie stoner character. Madusa is in U.S. flag bellbottoms and a skimpy top and Asya’s in red & black and backflips into the ring (See?! That’s not Chyna stuff! She’s just some muscular woman with a similar name!) and oh fuuuuuuuuuuu here comes Oklahoma (writer Ed Ferrara doing a horrible Jim Ross parody… okay this one actually IS a proper parody so it doesn’t earn the same criticism of the other ones, but it’s more mean-spirited and poorly acted so it’s actually still worse).

Asya shows proper athleticism by kipping up, but does a dropkick way early, long after Madusa grabs the ring ropes to avoid it. It occurs to me that Oklahoma’s accent is more of a generic Texan accent than an attempt to mimic JR and oh god just what this match needs- MORE FUCKERY- as out comes Shane Douglas, a beret-wearing Perry Saturn & Dean Malenko. Madusa eats some gut-punches, apparently giving Asya instructions the entire time, then takes a monkey flip and gets choked after a legdrop. Oklahoma does some “barefoot and pregnant” statements regarding a woman’s proper place (Tenay: “haven’t you heard of GENDER EQUITY?”. Yes he said “equity”) and then Madusa does a flip dodge in the corner and lures Asya into a shoudlerblock, then leapfrogging the ropes… and just doing an overhand punch because she really had no plan after that. Then the Revolution stable hits the ring apron to distract everyone, annoying Madusa, but before Asya can nail her, Saturn smashes her from behind, allowing Madusa to get her finisher, the Bridging German, for the pin at (1:43). “Which was a move originated by a man!” Oklahoma shouts over the count and Tenay’s commentary because timing isn’t his specialty either. And then things get EVEN DUMBER, as the Revolution argue with Saturn over why he did that, then the Filthy Animals hit ringside as Tenay screams “OH MY GODDDDD!” as the camera COMPLETELY MISSES Oklahoma cracking Madusa with his omnipresent BBQ sauce bottle.

haha I was expecting a standard-issue weaksauce match (Asya had VERY little training and Madusa was washed) but got something even worse, as even Thunder couldn’t go without Russoriffic garbage. A whole-ass stable runs in AND we have Oklahoma out there, then we get interference, inter-stable squabbling, Madusa gets hurt by her rival (Oklahoma), then ANOTHER stable running out just because they don’t like the first stable. There’s like EIGHT MEN involved in a 1:43 match featuring two women. I was gonna look up Asya’s career and holy jesus- her Wikipedia page is like THREE PAGES LONG. She was in the business for only one year!

Rating: DUD (scarcely even a match)

NWA WORLD MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE:
ATLANTIS vs. EMILIO CHARLES, JR.:
(CMLL, Aug. 21st 1990)
* Hey look, it’s more lucha! With guys I’ve never seen wrestle! Actually I think Atlantis was in that Cibernetico match. Never even heard of Emilio. He’s a second-generation guy and has a pretty square head & body, and a wild haircut. Atlantis is a more fit-looking guy in a white & blue mask.

PRIMERA CAIDA: Emilio gets the worst of some standard lucha exchanges and pouts about it, hits a dropkick but misses a senton, but when Atlantis goes for a rana, he just crushes him down with a Folding Powerbomb and pins him already at (3:17)!

SEGUNDA CAIDA: Emilio quickly gets a running dropkick before the bell, then Atlantis sells a spinebuster so much he kicks his legs like a cartoon character and rolls to the floor. Emilio catches him with another one, then smashes him into the corner, but charges into the post himself and now sells big as he takes an electric chair drop & neckbreaker. Atlantis looks very silly as he skips about the ring and casually knocks Emilio over with his shoulder, then flips him around in three different moves until missing a move and ending up on the floor, where Emilio hits a tope and eats shit on the landing himself. Both guys sell, and when Emilio stumbles into the ring, Atlantis leaps onto his shoulders and hits a victory roll for the pin (3:57).

TERCERA CAIDA: Emilio charges in for a dropkick, misses, then ends up spun into a torture rack, quitting almost literally the second the hold is applied (0:05)! Atlantis wins the whole match!

Well uhhhhh that was a match! I have no idea what to expect with lucha- half the time I see “goofy first fall, semi-serious second fall, then REALLY serious third fall!” and lots of blood feuds, but sometimes just random nothing, and this was like… a collection of signature lucha spots (spinny leaping move into an armdrag! that thing where you monkey flip them with your feet! tilt-a-whirl backbreaker!) as if you were trying to teach a newcomer all the standard spots. And it was SO SHORT! I was expecting 20 minutes, the way most lucha matches are- instead he just demolishes this guy after losing the first fall, and every fall is less than four minutes long. Is this their equivalent of a “Star vs. Sal Sincere” type of match? And the selling and stuff was so goofy and cartoonish it’d be a Comedy Match in any American or Japanese promotion at this point. Plus the “Lucha Insta-Submission” for the deciding fall- I’m used to guys giving up that way in Trios matches or the first fall, not in the deciding one.

Rating: ** (I mean… nobody botched! Plenty of spinny moves! Goofy cartoon selling! I don’t know!)

NWA WORLD MIDDLEWEIGHT TITLE:
ATLANTIS vs. EMILIO CHARLES, JR.:
(CMLL, March 22nd 1991)
* Hey, I found another one! This appears as a longer video so maybe it’s a fuller match! Charles is billed as “El Rey Del Beautiful” (“Rey” means “king”, but “BEAUTIFUL”?! What the hell is that?!).

PRIMERA CAIDA: Charles gets taken down but works a headscissors to start. They chain-wrestle, doing pretty well with it, with tight and intricate reversals. Finally they do pin-reversals and then a resthold for a bit, then a test of strength, Emilio doing the “jump onto him” thing from there, but doing one jump too many and earning a HUGE monkey-flip across the ring! But Atlantis takes a single armdrag and he’s basically dead, and when he tries a run-up crossbody he eats shit and is even worse off. Emilio whips him off the ropes and catches him with a facelock/doublearm thing and twists him until Atlantis submits at (6:45).

SEGUNDA CAIDA: We’re JIP with Atlantis getting a moonsault dodge but getting dropkicked to the floor, and when he flies back into the ring he’s cracked by a lariat. But Emilio stalls too much and gets tilt-a-whirled and takes a cartoon bump to the floor, then eats a corkscrew dive off the top for the pin at (1:28 shown).

TERCERA CAIDA: Emilio is now selling BIG-TIME as Atlantis bounces him around, hitting a neckbreaker and donking him on the head with a knee, then a spinebuster and a weardown hold. But he misses a missile dropkick and is now in big trouble- Emilio works all the rollups he can think of to try and score a pin, and when that doesn’t work, finally resorts to a big flying splash for two. Atlantis, however, manages a quick inside cradle and hits a BIG tope suicida (the lucha-style “flying headbutt” one, not the modern “bodyblock into the guardrail” thing). Back in, Atlantis gets leapfrogged and is hurt (I wonder if he was supposed to do a move and just slipped, so they improvised?). Senton gets two, and he REALLY tries to finish this time, but a Cannonball off the top results in a miss! He’s dying off that landing, but they just kinda run into each other and Emilio cannonballs Atlantis from the apron to the floor (I think Atlantis accidentally moved out of the way first, haha). Atlantis is back in first, but eats a flying crossbody for two and misses a dropkick (probably supposed to hit, but he was short and Emilio didn’t sell it), then Emilio hits a tope suicida of his own and… hey, it’s the same finish as last time! Atlantis follows him back in the ring and hits the Victory Roll for the three at (7:15)! Weak!

Okay THIS was more like it! Competent technical wrestling, tight offense, big bumps and dramatic flourishes, and more. Atlantis gets his ASS kicked for the first two falls, but scores a last-ditch win and then the last is like the big lucha bouts I’ve seen where they just try move after move to win. Though Atlantis seemed weaker and not as sharp here, often being loose or missing moves. Emilio controlled nearly EVERYTHING, doing every big move he could think of, usually hitting them until that somersault senton missed. And even THEN he managed one last dive before they copied the finish of the prior match. I liked how Emilio does a fireman’s carry and then just lurches a guy down to set them up for falling moves- not the usual bodyslam. It’s just so mean and HURK-y doing it that way.

Rating: ***1/4 (much better! Tight, well-executed offense, lots of big moves and played up the heel’s desperation to use them to win, which ultimately backfires and gets him beaten by a more clever opponent)