Triple H vs. Rikishi Phatu for the WWF Title (and other Dream Matches!)

HHH backing up in shock after Rikishi gets up despite being smashed with a weapon. See, that’s how ya do it.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week I have a very special case- a match where I give COMPLIMENTS to Triple H! Because my reviews last week of Rikishi’s debut matches upon his return led to people discussing his rapid-fire push and a very good HHH match on SmackDown!, and since I was already reviewing the next batch of Rikishi squashes, I figured I’d throw them all together and show those squashes leading to the HHH bout, comparing and contrasting the stylistic differences as Rikishi “figures it out” and starts to get over! So we start with Rikishi versus Tracy Smothers (Southern perma-midcarder and “good hand”) and then Joey Abs, putting him together with Too Cool, and then he gets a big January 2000 match against Triple H himself for the World Title! And HHH makes someone look like a star!

After that, a very “WCW” kind of match, as one of the best Cruiserweight workers on Earth gets crushed by do-nothing bottomfeeder Hugh Morrus on WCW Saturday Night in 1997! And finally, I at last get to the “Dying Days of ECW” guys, with the Dream Matches debut of BILVIS WESLEY, one of the all-time bad worked names, as a late-stage ECW performer I forgot existed until a BOD review on the end times of ECW on TNN reminded me about him! Here he takes on ECW workhorse Jerry Lynn! And then it’s his compatriots in that era, as Chilly Willy wrestles Chris Hamrick on ECW Hardcore TV!

RIKISHI FATU vs. TRACY SMOTHERS:
(WWF Sunday Night Heat, Nov. 21st 1999)
* Well I’ll be dipped! TRACY SMOTHERS did time as a jobber in late ’90s WWF! I thought Freddie Joe Floyd was his only run! Rikishi’s name is actually spelled “Rakishi Fatu” on the chyron, while Tracy gets the jobber entrance. Rikishi’s dropped the weird suspender-top thingie, and now has his hair in the ponytail it’d be in for the rest of his run/career.

Rikishi misses a clothesline to start and a tall, gangly Smothers throws right hands at him, but Rikishi interrupts him with a throat thrust. Smothers tries a hiptoss (lol, good luck) and gets hit with the ass avalanche into the quick Banzai Drop. A slam sets up the Earthquake Vertical Splash, and Smothers backwards rolls off a headbutt but manages a comeback with punches and his regular leaping heel kick, but Rikishi just stops selling them and flips Smothers into the Rikishi Driver (over-the-shoulder sit-out tombstone) and sits on him (in reverse this time! No more “slow sit on the chest” from the front)- that’s it at (2:34). It’s still interesting watching Rikishi work the kinks out of his style in these squashes- he drops the quick Banzai & Earthquake stuff eventually and focuses more on ass-based humiliation and dancing instead of stoicism. The “sitting on the guy” pin after the Rikishi Driver needs to go, though- it’s too long after the finisher impact and too elaborate.

Rating: 1/2* (Another semi-decent squash- Smothers given a bit of offense and Rikishi quickening his pace a little- 3/5 on the Squash Scale)

RIKISHI FATU (w/ Too Cool) vs. JOEY ABS (w/ The Mean Street Posse):
(WWF SmackDown!, Nov. 25th 1999)
* Another piece of the puzzle is completed as Rikishi is paired with Too Cool, currently their stoic buddy as he looks a bit curiously at their dancing antics. The Posse were always jobbers but I think by this point they’re not even involved with programs- just getting crushed.

Abs catches Rikishi staring at the Posse goons and jumps him from behind, but tries a sunset flip and gets sat on- Rikishi grooves and grinds on him in that position until just casually getting up, then hits the ass avalanche/Banzai Drop while GODDAMN BRIAN CHRISTOPHER IS STILL DOING THAT HYENA LAUGH! Why is a BABYFACE doing that? Rikishi now does the “arms out” pose before going for the Rikishi Driver, then during, completing that piece of the puzzle for the win at (1:46), Rikishi more just sliding onto him with his ass in Joey’s face for the pin, having dropped the “slow sit”. More utter destruction, with the Posse not even getting any cheating done. They hit the ring after to attack Rikishi, but Too Cool fights them and Rikishi hits the Earthquake Splash on Pete Gas. Rikishi’s about to take his leave, but HERE WE GO- Too Cool stop him and hand him some sunglasses, pressuring him into dancing with them. Without the lights going out, they all hit the “clenched hands” pose and do a dance, Rikishi showing some hesitance and following the lead of his “homies”, and they finally connect that piece of the puzzle as well.

Rating: 1/4* (even less to it than the other squashes, but fine because this is a more important show and Abs is a low-end nobody who shouldn’t be getting anything- 2/5 on the Squash Scale)

WWF WORLD TITLE:
TRIPLE H (w/ Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley) vs. RIKISHI PHATU:
(WWF SmackDown!, Jan. 4th 2000)
* He was! He WAS “Rikishi Phatu” for a while! I didn’t imagine that! So Rikishi has been around for only a couple of months, first doing simple squashes until he got mixed in with Too Cool, then started going along with their dances. HHH meanwhile has become the biggest heel in the business, marrying the boss’s daughter and gaining total booking power in a totally outlandish and unrealistic move. He & Steph were trying to work a draw, but Howard Finkel screwed them over and pulled big Rikishi’s name out of the tumbler. Rikishi does a good job heading to the ring looking nervous, like a man who knows he’s in for the biggest match of his life. But in a show of confidence, he sends his boys to the back. HHH comes out all confident, and yeah… 2000-era HHH is as shredded as he ever was. After the quad injury he just got bloated, but here he’s got that v-shaped torso, defined back muscles, etc., and looks SUPER thin from a side view, especially against a dude Rikishi’s size.

HHH jumps Rikishi before the bell to indicate heelishness and desperation, but Rikishi fires back and does a “dancing final punch” and back body drop to little reaction. Hunter’s doing a good job selling already, though, flinging himself around, doing the “confused stumble” and just goes SPLAT on the floor after another right hand. Rikishi hits a legdrop and stair-shots, but goes into them himself. HHH works him over with more stair-shots and slams him into the announce table for like a minute (yup, it’s the Attitude Era alright), then counters Rikishi’s slugging it out in the ring with a shot to the gut (… why would that work?) and the knee-facecrusher. DX is shown watching backstage and Steph is doing commentary and uh, not being very entertaining with it (“I have complete faith in my husband” is maybe the best line). A rare HHH clothesline has Rikish do his 360 sell. That’s a few too many in-ring things in a row for Hunter so it’s time to dump Rikishi for more floor-work, but he quickly goes into the railing and gets clotheslined. Back in, Hunter does another good stumble off a strike and they call a spot- he’s hit with the ass avalanche into the Samoan drop for two (the crowd noise pretty clearly piped in with an “OHHHHH!”). Rikishi catches him with a belly-to-belly and sloowwwwllllly drags him over to the corner, hitting the Banzai Drop like 30 seconds later, getting a close two-count as HHH does a weak jerk to the side. Okay NOW the crowd has visibly come to life, with that classic “Wait, are we gonna actually see a title switch?” reaction.

Rikishi aims for the Rikish Driver, but HHH slinks out and sets up the Pedigree, getting backdropped to counter and another big reaction. Rikishi rushes him with a superkick- two! Man, Monsoon would be all over him for these lax covers, letting HHH quickly jerk to the side and get out with so little force. Rikishi slaps his ass but butt-drops onto nothing as HHH slides out. Stephanie panics and brings in a chair, distracting the ref so HHH can donk Rikishi right on the head, denting the shit out of it. And that’s… two! The crowd pops big again, as by this point the “distraction chairshot” was as legit a finisher as wrestling had. Hunter loses his shit at this, charging Tim White to complain about the count, and basically goes “fuck it” and grabs the WWF Title and openly wallops Rikishi to escape. That’s a DQ at (7:12), the Champ running out like a gutless coward- like Ric Flair when a Von Erich presses him too hard in Dallas or some shit. HHH stands over Rikish to jab a finger at him, but gets horrified when Rikishi starts getting to his feet AGAIN, and smashes him with a chair repeatedly until finally fleeing in fright when Rikishi again won’t stay down and even slowly comes after him again! And then, best of all, as HHH gets all yell-y on the ramp, Too Cool comes out and puts on Rikishi’s shades so they can do their crowd-pleasing dance in celebration! Unpleased, however, is Hunter, who heels it up by being TOTALLY OUTRAGED at Rikishi slapping his prodigious buttocks in Hunter’s general direction. And with that, the show ends.

HHH’s look of shock and “What the fuck? I hit him with the belt and he’s still moving!?” is terrific and exactly what this moment needed.

A very good TV match- not the longest one, but it felt like a really long segment (by Attitude Era standards this is practically an Iron Man Match), with the sole purpose of putting Rikishi over and building his credibility. I will say HHH was tremendous at selling for this one- he’d do stuff like fling his whole body back off a shot, clutch his ribs in agony and collapse inwards when hit with an avalanche, and more. Really putting his all into the motions. And this helped serve the purpose of the match- the entire problem with World Title matches against midcarders is that the crowd never REALLY believes that the champ is gonna lose, so they end up very quiet for plenty of it. It takes a lot of trickery to convince them that “hey, maybe…”, from flukes to “well they might write it out later” lucky wins might happen. And here, they pulled it off, mostly by having Hunter sell his ass off and Rikishi hit big move after big move on him. You usually only saw jobbers eat such a continuous string of shit like that- ass avalanche to Samoan drop to belly-to-belly to Banzai Drop, then countering a finisher attempt with a superkick- they were biting by this point because Hunter was eating EVERYTHING, and Rikishi was even countering the big offense. And then Hunter gets the super-obvious “heel cheats” win, BUT IT FAILS, and instead of just scoring a Pedigree anyways, HHH just grabs the belt to openly get DQ’d because he can’t deal with this opponent and is getting frustrated. Classic chickenshit “this guy is pressing me too hard” heeling.

So yeah, Triple H is a guy I’ve frequently criticized- one poster reminded me how I once said “he has the worst instincts ever for a guy pushed to his level”, and while I’ll mostly stand by that with his long “Forced Epic” brawls (especially as he got out of shape), in this case he 100% knew the assignment and knocked it out of the park, showing very few of his notable weaknesses. Yes I snuck in a few knocks on his stuff THE REIGN OF TERROR WAS REALLY BAD TO SIT THROUGH SHUT UP!

Rating: ***1/4 (perfect for what it was and what it needed to do)

HUGH MORRUS (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. PSYCHOSIS:
(WCW Saturday Night, April 19th 1997)
* The most “WCW Saturday Night” match possible, a midcard Dungeon of Doom loser taking on a random luchadore! Psychosis is in black & gold, and in that zone where he’s more credible than, like, Lizmark or Villano IV, but he’s mostly still a jobber. Morrus is dour-faced in a black singlet with ? symbols all over it.

Morrus no-sells Psychosis’s offense and beats his ass, hitting a big avalanche as commentary puts him over teaming with Konnan against the Steiners on PPV. Morrus takes him lightly, so Psychosis hits a flying wheel kick. Morrus hits the floor and Samoa Joes away from a pescado and lariats the shit out of him- oof. Tony Schiavone tries to put over Psychosis as a great wrestler while Morrus just waffles him with another lariat and finishes with a powerbomb & No Laughing Matter (moonault) at (2:14). I know WCW had a roster that was beyond stacked in 1997, but it’s still funny watching Psychosis, a worker above the level of Rey Fenix today (but like, actually capable of selling and letting shit breathe so he’s way better, just less agile), be treated like a capital “J” jobber in TV squashes. Dude is so freaking good and could go in **** matches with Rey or Juventud at this point but he’s being squashed like a bug by Hugh Morrus, who has 1/10 his talent. And man, Hugh gave the guy NOTHING, haha- just grumpily destroyed him, allowing a single move to hit and shrugging it off. It’s wild since fans would be up in arms today if a guy this good was jobbing to a dude with as little upside as Hugh Morrus in today’s scene. Especially with the “hits a powerbomb, then stalls on top to make a mean face before hitting the “Moonsault” thing.

Rating: * (match was a perfectly fine squash- Psychosis got one move and bumped like nuts, allowing Morrus to look like a big badass)

This is just “Ugh- we give up, OKAY?” in wrestling form.

JERRY LYNN vs. BILVIS WESLEY (w/ The Prodigy & Prodigette):
(ECW on TNN, Fall 2000)
* Woo baby it’s time for some BILVIS WESLEY content on this column! A guy I actually legit forgot existed until reading one of the BOD’s columns on late-stage ECW and went “Oh holy crap, THAT guy!”. Keep in mind I still distinctly remember the runs of Chilly Willy and Mike Tolbert and and think about what it means for me to have forgotten someone. He’s indie worker Billy Wiles, whose Wikipedia bio indicates he’s a “friend hire” for being pals with Balls Mahoney, and ended up teaming with CW Anderson as part of a new “Dangerous Alliance”, but never got so much as a push for the most part- just being a minor part of TV. Looks like he pissed around the indies all the way until 2017, mostly in Monster Pro Wrestling and other Northeast feds, sometimes as “Belvis” Wesley. I don’t know what’s sadder- that his big idea was to do an Elvis parody in a hardcore wrestling company or that he never had a better one. Plain ol’ Jerry Lynn comes out in his black tights and lots of steroids, taking on Bilvis, a big guy in a purple singlet and a short buzzcut. Is this Elvis in the Marines he’s supposed to be parodying? He’s a much bigger, doughier guy than I remembered (I remember so little of him I was picturing an actual Elvis impersonator and a babyface, in fact). And of course he’s with two sidekicks, meaning I have two MORE people to look up, haha- looks like it’s Tom Marquez & Angel Orsini, whose careers seem to peak with characters I’ve never heard of, and clearly writing their own Wikipedia pages.

Because this isn’t enough going on, referee Danny Daniels complains on the mic beforehand asking Jerry Lynn not to run into him this match- apparently he’s been stretchered out after every Lynn match. So Lynn slugs him! But this immediately brings out Rhino, who Gores Lynn! Man if I wrote all that shit and this match is thrown out I’m gonna be pissed, haha. Rhino puts Lynn over his shoulder and runs them both through a table in the corner (this really excites the fans), and the bell finally rings!

Bilvis throws some punches, but Lynn immediately ducks and nearly hits his Cradle Piledriver, so Prodigy has to save. He eats the move instead (lol why is Jerry just up and hitting all his shit with perfect execution? HE WAS JUST GORED TWICE!), so Bilvis runs in with a swinging neckbreaker. But he misses a flying back elbow and Jerry Cradle Piledrives him… but Daniels disqualifies him for striking an official at (0:37). Lynn nearly piledrives HIM, too, but the Prodigette attacks from behind this time and Lynn kicks her in the vagina to the delight of the all-male ECW crowd and Cradle Piledrives her. Well I knew that was coming. So Jerry leaves everyone lying and is triumphant. LOL what the fuck was the point of the Rhino run-in, then? Jerry no-sold it in ten seconds!

I was gonna say I was disappointed by this one, but it’s actually pretty much ECW in a nutshell- promos before the match, run-ins before and during, finisher spam, random no-selling, then more run-ins. Wesley is “saved” with a fuck finish except he looks like the hugest pussy on Earth for being beaten so hard with four friggin’ people helping him out. Not that you can assess it as a bout, really.

Rating: DUD (Lynn’s stuff, as usual, is tightly done… which is stupid because he should theoretically be selling Rhino’s assault the whole time)

CHILLY WILLY vs. CHRIS HAMRICK:
(ECW Hardcore TV, 2000)
* haha I did in fact find some CHILLY WILLY content as well! Willy was around in the dying days of ECW on TNN, yet I never once recall him getting promo time or even a push- he’d just sorta show up and team up with the babyfaces in big group fights (indicating he wasn’t trusted to do solo bouts). Looks like it was mostly with Balls Mahoney, fighting Da Baldies. I actually forgot Chris Hamrick existed, and I should only know him from ECW. He’s an “Indies 4 Life” type of guy who did a short TNA run as “Crimson Dragon”. He’s “in the ring to the ref’s left” here, making his ECW debut in generic 2000-era long white tights with silver accents and a “long hair + high ponytail”- very Jericho. Willy is announced as being from wherever the show is, because he’s “Everybody’s homeboy”. With his derby hat, gold chain and constant dancing, this feels like a Vince gimmick.

Hamrick attacks from behind when Willy’s getting off all his shit, throws a bunch of shots and nearly lands on him after a dropkick, some fans giving him a “You fucked up!” chant for it. Willy ducks a clothesline and launches him with an overhead belly-to-belly, Hamrick selling the back well and then trying to hide- Willy just yoinks him by the ponytail and beats the shit out of him. Hamrick manages to eyerake out of a pithold and that’s all it takes to hit a big guillotine legdrop 3/4 the way across the ring. He talks shit and takes too long covering, and does the Boss Man slam in the ropes while Willy bugs his eyes out like a goof. But then Hamrick tries it again and takes the MULKEY BUMP, earning another “You Fucked Up!” chant (which are normally for botches, not “the heel is a dumbass lol” spots). Hamrick gets tossed back in and begs off like a wuss, then nails Chilly’s willy and goes up- Willy nails him in the gut coming down and finishes him with the Falcon Arrow at (3:05).

Okay this was 100 times better than I was expecting, lol. Like I have few memories of Chilly Willy’s in-ring expertise but he was very much like a 1980s WWF wrestler here, while Hamrick had all this “Southern Heel” in him, bumping like a doofus, writhing in agony on the landings, and begging off. He even cheated to try and get one last move, earning a punch and a finisher. So this wasn’t quite a squash (Hamrick got too much offense), but was this super quick little 3-minute mini-match with good selling and good bumps. Both guys actually looked good!

Rating: ** (astonishingly good considering the time and my preconceived notions of quality)