Mortis vs. Juventud Guerrera and a Florida Outlaw Mudshow Indie Promotion (and other Dream Matches!)

You know you’re watching a masterful production when you can get screencaps like this.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week I have something a little different for you- OUTLAW MUDSHOW BULLSHIT!! Roy Lucier just uploaded some POS Florida indie running a show in a union hall, and OH MY GOD it’s a spectacular trainwreck, and exactly why these promotions are hated. It has the most glorious mix of “just-trained” nobodies with no Cagematch profiles and people who actually went on to do something in the wrestling business- people like Marc Mero, Debbie Drake (Malenko), Sandy Beach, LIGHTNING FOOT Jerry Flynn and Horace Boulder fill out a card that includes a ton of embarrassing, business-exposing losers. And you simply have to see Sandy wrestle Eddie Rose- it I swear to God makes the “My Vag Hurts!” match look like a masterpiece.

But I couldn’t do a column of JUST this awful show, so to fill it out, here’s Mortis vs. Juventud Guerrera on WCW Saturday Night in 1998, as Chris Kanyon finally gets a guy small enough where he can try ALL his silly bullshit movez on and just hammers them all out. Then it’s more of DEMOLITIONMANIA here on Dream Matches, as they get their first-ever big contest taking on The Islanders in early 1987.

MORTIS (w/ James Vandenberg) vs. JUVENTUD GUERRERA:
(WCW Saturday Night, 01/03/1998)
* Another one of those fantastic “Only in WCW” matches, it’s Mortis in the midst of his go-nowhere midcard run taking on a high-level luchadore! His mission now is to prove he’s “the best masked wrestler in WCW” and go through all the luchadores. Did that ever go anywhere? Juventud was one of the top lucha guys in WCW, but still had his mask at this point and wasn’t quite as pushed.

Juvi thows some wild show-off kicks to start, so Mortis does his “martial arts stance” and sweeping kicks him, then pummels him in the corner, really emphasizing the huge height difference. Mortis biels him and no-sells a shoulderblock, flattening him but eating a spinning headscissors. Juvi uses speed to keep on him, firing off a springboard dropkick, but Vandenberg pulls the middle rope down to put him on the floor. Mortis slugs the injured Juvi and does his “pumphandle toss him from the second rope throat-first onto the top rope” move. Dusty puts over how Juvi “retched down deep” to kick out of that one. Juvi is “wobbly-legged” as Vandenberg rants to the camera, realizes it’s not on him, then has to do it again, haha. Mortis puts Juvi on his shoulders and launches him into an inverted Ligerbomb, just having a glorious day with an opponent 100 lbs. lighter than himself, but his cover is so nonchalant Juvi’s able to pull the arm up. Dusty & Tony admonish Mortis as sure enough, Juvi whirls around Mortis and sleepers him, but gets swung into a backbreaker. Mortis goes for the Flatliner (at that point, a Samoan drop from the 2nd rope), but Juvi spins into a Ligerbomb counter! Mortis kicks out and keeps throwing Juvi around, but he lands on his feet from a German, but tries a springboard moonsault and gets caught- Mortis wastes too much time and gets shoved into the corner for a missile dropkick for two! But Juvi climbs one too many times and flings himself right into the D.O.A. (what eventually became the Flatliner- the move where he gives himself a rock bottom). That’s that at (6:00).

Well that was a spirited little contest! Both guys were in that “push me, please!” zone and trying to impress, because they were doing big bumps for a weekend show. Though Juvi was a nutjob and just always fought like this. He just kept eating move after move and coming back, Kanyon in his showoff zone with all his beloved innovations (most of which are moves people don’t even do today). I’m of two minds with that stuff- it DOES look cool, amd makes midcard piffle look more interesting, but flinging around tiny JUVENTUD in them and not getting pins makes them all look weak. Never mind that most of it was only possible because he had a tiny bumper willing to fly around for him. The “Juvi gives up a lot of size but has a lot of spirit” thing is good for a TV match, but he’s never close to victory and the match also isn’t that over (a recurring issue with Kanyon and this era of Juventud). Fun stuff, though!

Rating: **1/2 (much better than most Saturday Night matches but not “tell your friends about it” good or anything- crazy Mortis offense and Juvi bumped well for him, but didn’t have his character down yet)

DEMOLITION (Ax & Smash, w/ Mr. Fuji) vs. THE ISLANDERS (Haku & Tama):
* This is VERY early in Demolition’s run still, and probably their first-ever TV match against real competition. The Islanders are at this point quick babyfaces. Smash has more Ax-like makeup in the early days, sporting no beard, silver paint and red eye makeup, while Ax still has his face mostly black with some blue bits.

Haku immediately catches Ax napping with a big chop and the Islanders tee off on him repeatedly, Jesse putting them over as smart for keeping it to their own corner, and theorizing that Demolition didn’t expect this, especially as Smash comes in and ALSO takes a beating. An atomic drop into a thrust kick from the apron puts him down, but he pulls Tama to the corner and tags out, and there’s a weird bit where Tama won’t let them get offense on him and bails, so Ax tries the same thing to Smash holds Tama for a beating. They trade off a few times and hit the neck-vice, but Tama soon escapes. Haku tries some stuff but Ax simply absorbs it and punches him in the throat (Ventura marking out for how he put his back to the ref to hide it, while Vince reacts with shock at how “nothing HURTS Demolition!”). Haku manages to get a big superkick off a whip, pausing a sec before tagging (which Vince calls out- “Don’t seem to have the RHYTHM down!”) and Smash eats a double-chop & stereo falling headbutts, setting up the finish- Ax gets punched and hits the ring, distracting the ref so when Tama climbs, Fuji just YANKS his ankle with the cane and the poor guy takes a mother of a face-bump, just splattering all over the mat so Smash can do the “Post-Cheating Elbowdrop” for the pin at (3:51). Going over the Islanders that early- not bad!

A pretty decent little TV match- Demolition got to be befuddled by rapid-fire babyface offense to start, but impressively managed to simply fight back, always selling in the moment but powering through and hitting their own stuff, and their frequent tags shook up their opponents. The usual good Islander offense sets up a good finish with an INCREDIBLE bump by Tama (though it wouldn’t surprise me if Fuji hooked him for a shoot to be a dick).

Rating: **1/2 (good TV match- short but energetic)

SOME OUTLAW MUDSHOW BULLSHIT COMPANY:
(Mango, Florida, May 5th 1990)

Next up, something very special… OUTLAW MUDSHOW BULLSHIT WRESTLING! This is some unnamed promotion in a Union Workers Hall in Mango, Florida. It features a shitload of never-was guys, barely trained losers, and more… but there’s also LIGHTNING FOOT! Yes, Jerry Flynn himself is in the main event against Horace Boulder in a battle of the worst pushed WCW guys ever! MARC MERO in the second match on the card! And a sighting of DEBBIE MALENKO! Oh, and Sandy Beach of UWF fame!

This is in a puny Union Workers Hall with poor lighting and maybe 30 fans present. I can only imagine what the Cagematch profiles of these guys look like. Most don’t have ANY, and wrestle like they just completed their training an hour before the show.

You know it’s bad when the lightweight match has a guy with a gut in it.

WELTERWEIGHT MATCH:
THE ZEBRA KID vs. DYNAMITE CECIL WRIGHT:
* Both guys are announced as under 150 lbs. and look it- basically the Sammy Guevara tier. The Zebra Kid is actually a masked wrestler, with a black shirt with zebras drawn across it, and striped pants. Cecil’s got his chicken-legs covered in long red tights. No CM results for either guy, though “Zebra Kid” has been used a LOT- is this like Doink the Clown, where a million dudes can play him? Cuz I don’t think there’s much name value there. I was about to dig more on how skinny both guys are but Zebra Kid clearly has a huge gut he forgets to suck in after taking off his shirt. You know it’s bad when the under-150 division has beer guts, lol.

Zebra tries a charge but gets armdragged a bunch, both guys super-careful about the technique, suggesting to me they just got trained like, RECENTLY. Zebra tells a jeering fan to “shut up!” and the announcer says “folks, don’t be shy about the carrying on- it’s all part of the wrestling match!”. The kids do some Junior-style chain-wrestling that’s very rehearsed and not very worked (sometimes they get into position for the move before the other guy has touched them). “Five minutes down!” says the announcer, which… it’s been two. Is this fancam clipped? ARE THE MATCH TIMES BUILT ON A HILL OF LIES?! They work an eternal headscissors spot, repeating it, Cecil doing the flying corner variation! Zebra finally tosses him off after a third then beats him down- 2nd-rope fistdrop gets two. Zebra does stuff like backrakes with zero intensity, and neither guy interacts with the crowd- a clue of them in “trainee mode” just doing things so they don’t make mistakes. Zebra punches out of a sunset flip, forgetting to pin, then misses a kneedrop. The announcer begs people to “scream, yell, carry on- it’s all part of the wrestling match!” (translation: PLEASE CHEER). Cecil gets a monkey-flip and limp dropkick for two, but another monkey flip sees him land badly on an inverted atomic drop, causing him to yelp in pain (probably hurt, lol) and Zebra Kid reorders his kneepad, stands around, then casually punches him for the three at (6:28). lmao what was THAT? Ohhhh he used a weapon! That’s why Cecil appears to molest him after the match (he’s getting the weapon out), and slugs him and the ref counts THAT pin at (6:44). yeah, okay, Cecil wins instead. Zebra actually sells being “dizzy” and wanders around, tripping over the second rope to end it.

Rating: DUD (this was just two skinny kids doing their planned trainee wrestling match, with super careful execution, forgetting to put any character into it, and more. Limp offense and “well I think this is right” headscissors stuff. I guess there’s SORTA psychology in the finish with Zebra reversing moves that’d been used before, but I refuse to rate this higher)

MARK “MONSTER MAN” MERO vs. HENRY RAINES:
* MARC MERO! Except his CM bio doesn’t start until 1991. So I guess his time in the indies is not represented. Immediately he stands apart from the rest of the card by actually being in shape. Raines has black tights and a red singlet. Mero’s in red trunks.

Okay, these guys have had actual training, as they do a hammerlock reversal exchange and seem to actually be thinking about what their “strategy” should be, but Mero hits the weakest clothesline I’ve ever seen (sticks his arm out and doesn’t move the rest of his body). Tons of armdrags and armbars as it’s clear they’re MASSIVELY more well-trained than the last match, yet are also being incredibly boring, haha. lol, oop- Mero fucks up landing on his feet from a back body drop and Raines has to improvise. And their solution is to just fuck around in lockups and headlocks for a while, then try the spot AGAIN, this time Mero only barely doing it better, hitting a “lariat”, then a slow jog to the ropes and an elbowdrop. He misses a second and Raines does an embarrasingly bad Russian legsweep, but takes a horrible “bump” in the corner and Mero hits a flying sunset flip, Time Expiring at (5:38). “Ten Minutes” lol. This was an interesting look at how two guys who are clearly MUCH better than the opening match dudes could have a match that ALSO sucked to the level of being a DUD, mostly because this was more adequately-wrestled at first but still incredibly boring- all headlocks spots and things fell apart in the end with botches, bad execution, and more.

Rating: DUD (Mero would get a fair bit better. I think he crossed *** a couple times!)

NASTY NED vs. PAUL SAMSON:
* NASTY NED HAS A CAGEMATCH PROFILE!!! Ned Brady is a longtime WCW jobber until 1996. Brady is tall, scrawny and with a bad receding hairline- fantastic jobber look. Especially with that shitty ponytail. He’s announced as “Seen on National TV”. Samson is a short, burly guy with a horrible look and giant beard.

Samson does clunky amateur spots while Ned whines to the referee, suckers Samson with a kick, and goes to work. Nice back elbow and taunting elbowdrop as this dude is 100 times better than everyone else thus far. Samson gets a sunset flip and punches from the ground, Ned flopping like a fish off a clothesline. Samson batters him around a bunch more (a dropkick to the tummy lol) but gets flipped over the top rope and that’s a Disqualification at (3:55). NO THIS WAS ACTUALLY DECENTLY WORKED, YOU GITS! It’s funny because a guy who can put some snap into his offense suddenly looks like Ricky Steamboat after three of these matches. “HOLY SHIT THIS GUY IS AMAZING!”.

Rating: 1/2* (looked way better than everything else by virtue of being a perfectly acceptable jobber match- Ned moved really well and actually acted like an actual wrestler)

MR. EVERYTHING vs. MIKE MAJESTIC:
* Mike Majestic is an ultra-scrawny, pasty guy in normal clothes, while “Mr. Everything” is a burly Steve Williams (but fat)-like guy in a black singlet. Neither is on CM from what I can see.

Despite his squat figure, Everything is easily tossed about by his tiny, nerdy opponent, but dodges a corner shot and hits a vertical suplex with PROPER EXECUTION (!) and a potato-looking back elbow, flat-backing Majestic. We hit the chinlock, and Everything does more basics (a backbreaker and some filler), but an exhausted Majestic hits a limp comeback of knees, “clotheslines” and a hip-high dropkick as Ten Minutes Expires at (5:27). haha are all these matches gonna end mid-pin like that? Are they keeping Mike Majestic & Mr. Everything strong?

Rating: 1/4* (Mr. Everything actually looks decently-trained and capable, even with a bony opponent. But the other matches have lowered my standards)

Sandy Beach, sometimes called “Sunny Beach”, is a low-rent Jobber who peaked in the UWF, still adoring Herb Abrams as a result.

SANDY BEACH vs. EDDIE ROSE:
* It’s UWF icon Sandy Beach! Now in the ECW T-Shirt of Shame, but still with his yellow shorts. Eddie Rose (listed as “Sadat” by Lucier) is a generic guy in a black singlet.

Sandy does an armbar and Eddie “ankle-picks” him and hahahahah oh my god a RINGS-tier mat routine sees him repeatedly let go of the foot, reposition, try a bridge or something, then give up and just let go. Eddie tries to take him down by the leg and Sandy doesn’t know how to sell it. It annoys me more than it should that they’re not working to Sandy’s size (he’s easily 40 lbs. heavier than Rose but is just going down for stuff with no fight). What the fucking hell are these lariats hahahahaha- Eddie just lightly taps him with one, then another on the ropes just has Sandy not sell it and they both stop and awkwardly try something else. Sandy puts on a long headlock to try and save this, hitting a good running bulldog for two, but eats a “bearhug” and hahaha oh jesus I think SANDY was supposed to do the bearhug but Eddie misunderstood, because they then do another whip to SANDY’s bearhug. Sandy works that, then stalls, then gets taken down and elbowdropped and then OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO Eddie takes an inverted atomic drop (a foot between his dick and Sandy’s knee), stands there a sec, THEN does the bump, flat-facing. And TEN MINUTES EXPIRES at (7:23), running that finish three times in a row. I was laughing so hard I was DYING during most of this.

Rating: DUD (this is legit maybe the worst wrestling match I’ve ever seen- Eddie Rose could do NOTHING, hit only limp offense, and then fucked up tons and tons of spots and poor Sandy could do NOTHING with him. This makes the “MY VAG HURTS!” match look like Benoit/Angle at the Rumble. Sandy needed to just pin him early when it started falling apart)

T.J. STYLES vs. CHARLIE:
* We skip “Charlie’s” announcement so I’ve no idea. Both are white guys, Styles being less toned and in black & red tights, Charlie being more toned and in black shorts.

They do a cromulent, boring match full of armdrags, headlocks and headscissors (I’m guessing all these jobbers were trained by the same dude). Charlie shocks me by doing a GOOD clothesline, actually leaning into it and everything. Hahah he tries two pins off a BODY SLAM like he’s so desperate for victory. More stuff like back elbows & slams has Ten Minutes Expire at (5:30). Absolutely flavorless piffle, but nobody shit their pants so it looks amazing compared to the last one.

Rating: 1/4* (well, he’s the second best wrestler I’ve seen with a name ending in “J. Styles”)

RICK HARDROCK vs. PHIL DONOVAN:
* Rick Hardrock might be indie nothing Ricky Blues. He’s a tall guy in a black singlet… wait, that’s the ECW T-Shirt of Shame. Donovan is some pasty guy with a receding hairline and white shorts.

More flavorless nothing, with lots of snapmares. Each guy does a clothesline (Phil’s is better) and “slam then drop a limb” moves, then Phil hits a powerslam- HOLY SHIT CHECK OUT KING’S ROAD IN HERE! They do a double-down as Ten Minutes Expires at (5:08).

Rating: DUD (not embarrasing, but the most pedestrian offense ever- nothing of note happens in 5 minutes that’s worth recapping)

MAN MOUNTAIN BRODY (w/ “his valett-ay”) vs. JUMBO BARETTA:
* Oh my god YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! A hugely fat man! This show is SAVED! The ring announces mispronounces “valet” as “Vallettay” as Brody walks in, massive tits spilling out the front of his shirt and ridiculously short legs making him look beautifully indie. So much so that he gets dramatic BOOS, in the biggest reaction so far! Jumbo is pretty tall and has a portly body, but has a great Hart Foundation all-pink singlet. And he ACTUALLY HAS A CAGEMATCH PROFILE! Lots of jobs to Steve Keirn in Florida indies.

Jumbo immediately impresses me by making a point of putting over Brody’s size, bouncing off of him and being all “WTF?!”. He even gets clotheslined over the top rope! Who told this guy to TRY? “Someone get their child away from there, please” cries the announcer as somehow this move wasn’t a DQ, and Jumbo tries the DISINGENUOUS HANDSHAKE and gets his boot caught as I realize that Brody is the BABYFACE here. Baretta takes a comical bump off that, ducks a clothesline to sucker Brody with a boot, but he no-sells and this clothesline hits. THEY KNOW HOW TO WORK! Brody hits a massive legdrop, then sits on a screaming Jumbo during a sunset flip, but he misses a Big Fat Splash and Jumbo beats his ass, choking him out on the ropes. Brody flat-backs off a dropkick and Jumbo does a resthold with his ass facing the hard cam (SEND HIM TO NXT!) and pounds and chokes away, then fires off kneelifts to keep Brody down as things get too dull. Jumbo proclaims that he is the best, but takes too long on a Vader Bomb and eats knees- Brody mounts the comeback but gets his eyes raked and Jumbo shoves the ref so much that he gets disqualified, the ref booting him into a Brody clothesline that sends him to the floor (8:02). Jumbo is my hero by griefing the announcer (who looks exactly like he sounds- a generic old man with a pointy nose and weak chin).

Rating: 3/4* (spectacular match compared to all the others, being merely boring for half of it and Jumbo working overtime to make it something

Debbie Malenko, here using her & Sakie Hasegawa’s “Girl Steiner Brothers” look from 1992 AJW.

DEBBIE DRAKE vs. ALLISON ROYAL:
* And a random women’s match! After all these flabby dudes, the crowd has to be marvelling at two women with athletic figures, haha. Debbie Drake is a Malenko trainee who got to adopt the “family name” in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling as “Debbie Malenko” until a gruesome injury ended her career for thirty years, but here is green as grass. Royal I have no idea- she’s a blonde in a skimpy blue singlet, while Debbie’s in a white singlet over a grey bodysuit. Allison shockingly HAS A CAGEMATCH PROFILE, indicating she was a jobber for a few years on the indies, jobbing to Luna Vachon, Madusa and even some LLPW women in the Ladies Pro Wrestling Association. Both Allison AND the ref laugh at the announce’s “weighing in at two-hundred- EXCUSE ME- one hundred and twenty-three pounds” for her weight.

Royal with the headlock immediately, but Drake yoinks the hair to help a headscissors. They repeat this like a half-dozen times until Royal finally puts enough distance in by pulling on the arm, but Debbie “bootrakes” out and hits her into the turnbuckles a few times, hitting the same shitty clothesline everyone’s been doing all show (way too low), then another, then Allison does the single worst rope-run I’ve ever seen in my life, ever-so-lightly skipping over Debbie and doing a slow-mo skip into a knee. Allison goes for… a thing, probably a hiptoss but Debbie just spins away so Allison looks like an idiot, and sure enough, they grab a hold for a while and THEN do the hiptoss spot. Allison whips her and then slowly skips over for a big clash and a double-down, and Debbie’s slam attempt has Allison come down on her for… two, as Ten Minutes Expires at (6:26). Then they save things by getting into a brawl post-match, Debbie booting Allison and whupping her ass, then bashing her head into the REFEREE’s, taking them both out!

Rating: 1/4* (another pretty bad one- Allison was slow-moving and unsteady, while Debbie was athletic but clueless. It’s saved in the end by hurting the referee- that was funny)

CHRIS ZAHARIAS, THE BLACK PANTHER & JIMMY HARDTIME vs. STANLEY LITTLE BEAR & THE HUNTER BROTHERS (skinny guy & skinny guy):
* oh good gravy I can’t tell who is who, lol. Okay the short, portly Native American dude is easy to tell apart from the beanpole white guys beside him, but I don’t know Red Undies Over White from White Undies Over Red. Jimmy Hardtime (not “Hardtime Fields” as the match-listing says) is a generic-looking guy in brown tights, Zaharias is a soft, burly, hairy dude in black trunks, and “from anywhere and everywhere” is the masked Black Panther (not Frankie Royal).

Panther bounces around for Red Undies, then his partners rush in and get dropkicked by the other two- Panther flat-faces being dragged back into the ring and the Hunters double-team him. Hardtime takes hiptoss after hiptoss from Little Bear, but Zaharias slugs a Hunter and sets off UNCOORDINATED CHEATING from the resulting distraction. They endlessly beaton Little Bear with pedestrian shit as at least this is taking time from the Horace match. haha they worked in a false tag spot! This goes on FOREVER (one vertical suplex supplying our MOVEZ quotient) until Little Bear finally just pushes over to Red Undies, whose hot tag offense consists of clumsily amateur-rolling Zaharias over top of Little Bear’s body into a pin. But in comes White Undies & Little Bear for a beatdown, and the ref DQs everyone for the big, flavorless brawl at (8:26). haha maybe ONE MATCH will have a real finish?

Rating: DUD (just a totally amateur mess of boring offense, a bad version of the Heel Formula, and a match with zero flow to it)

NO DISQUALIFICATION:
“LIGHTNING FOOT” JERRY FLYNN vs. HORACE BOULDER:
* And yes, our Main Event is a match that would barely jerk the curtain on WCW Saturday Night eight years later- LIGHTNING FOOT (indeed going by that name already, as he never gets a better idea in his entire career) in baggy red pants goes up against Hulk Hogan’s nephew. Boulder, in red trunks, at this point is billed at probably his shoot size, 6’5″ 239 lbs. Wow, dig the mullet!

Flynn with some slick armdrags, Horace whining about them, and a dropkick gets two. Horace bails, and gets brought in the hard way with a suplex & elbowdrop. Flynn slams him for two, but gets choked & slammed. Long chinlock sets up Flynn’s comeback with a sunset flip, but his head gets clipped and Horace necks him on the top rope. Another chinlock sets up That Same Shitty Clothesline from Flynn, then a “whip off the ropes and karate chop them” spot, like Steamboat but at 1/10 quality. Horace dodges another and beats on him a while, but eats the inverted atomic drop. He recovers and That Shitty Clothesline gets two, but Flynn roundhouse kicks him. He hits the sleeper but IN COMES SOME OUT OF SHAPE BALDING GUY as Flynn gets beat on, the announcer helpfully indicating this is No DQ, and then a guy in Adidas pants helps out Flynn. Then hit elbowdrops on the heels, but Jerry spends too much time beating up balding guy on the floor that he’s Counted Out at (6:52). hahaha EVEN NOW there’s no finish. Maybe the ref just doesn’t know how to count to three and they improvised?

Rating: 1/2* (almost theoretically passable, as it’s merely boring and pedestrian instead of a complete embarrassment- like, you can actually tell why these guys sort of went on to do something, as bad as their careers look compared to other WCW guys)

Okay, this was HILARIOUS and great fun yet also I’m never trying that again, haha. It was blatantly obvious most of these dudes barely had the ink dry on their training school checks by this point, and were also trained by the same people, as you could tell about 80% of the dudes had the same exact moveset- armdrags, hiptosses, headscissors, legdrops, clotheslines (with the exact same shitty execution) and body slams, with an inverted atomic drop a recurring “big move”. And that was IT. Almost every match was just alterations of those same handful of moves, even copying spots. Like a dude hitting a backbreaker or Jumbo’s vader bomb felt like I was watching Ospreay all of a sudden. I was bewildered by all the time limit draws- why run ten of them on one card? Then I realized… they didn’t do any finishes because NOBODY KNOWS ANY FINISHERS YET. This was embarrassing and utterly hilarious watching guys just blankly go through “wrestling school 101” bullshit like super-careful armdrag/headlock fests with no character to the point where WCW jobbers were bringing the workrate because they knew how to work a crowd and put a bit of snap into their moves. Like, DINO BRAVO could do a better job than nearly everyone here.

And this brings to mind something I heard about “outlaw mudshow bullshit” promotions- part of the reason the NWA existed was to specifically keep promotions like this OUT. Like, someone going out there with half-trained beanpole rookies and having them fuck around in six-minute business-exposing matches that makes ALL WRESTLING look bad. Like, who could possibly think wrestling was real after watching Eddie Rose bugger move after move in ways that obviously confused his opponent, and then sell too late? So the NWA promised sort of a modicum- a baseline of training that prevented stuff like this from proliferating. Okay so it probably had more to do with ensuring everyone made money with no real competition BUT STILL.

Of course, the important question is: Did the fans get their money’s worth? And I would say YES… presuming each of them was paid a hundred and fifty dollars to attend. Otherwise they might never watch wrestling again. This was ridiculously stupid and I loved every minute of it, LOL- wrestling is fucking amazing.