Richard Morton & “Diamond” Dallas Page vs. Ron Simmons & The Junk Yard Dog (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week I have a weirdo headliner that surprised me- heel Richard Morton & rookie “Diamond” Dallas Page take on Ron Simmons & The Junk Yard Dog in 1992 WCW! Then I take a look at the ROCKERS REUNION from 2005 RAW, as Marty Jannetty’s last bit of relevancy is used for a nostalgia pop as he & Shawn Michaels team up to face La Resistance!

Then come and see a messy early WCW lucha match from SuperBrawl VII in early 1997 as Konnan, La Parka & Villano IV face Juventud Guerrera, Super Calo & Ciclope! It gives the fans some really great examples of huge bumps and insanity before going totally off the rails! I also found an odd squash match from 1981 WWWF, with new team Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito taking on jobbers SD Jones and a young Curt Hennig! Then it’s more of WHO, as Jim Neidhart’s masked gimmick goes up against Jake “The Snake” Roberts! Then our PWI 500 guy of the week is 20-year indie veteran KTB (Kyle The Beast), and he faces GCW friend Jungle Boy on AEW Dark!

“DIAMOND” DALLAS PAGE & RICHARD MORTON vs. RON SIMMONS & THE JUNK YARD DOG:
(WCW Saturday Night, 05/02/1992)
* AMAZING. A random grab-bag tag team match with one great worker out of four and it’s past his prime Ricky Morton AS A HEEL, teaming with green-as-grass new heel DDP against fairly unsteady but carryable powerhouse Ron Simmons and JYD, who is maybe the most washed-up wrestler ever pushed in the big two. DDP’s in his best ’80s animal print neon purple singlet with round sunglasses with jangles hanging off of them, fully-swaggering his head and bellowing in his Joisey accent- it brings to mind Abdullah the Butcher’s point to Mick Foley about how he was going to succeed despite all that was going against him- “He lives the gimmick”. Morton has his usual bleach-blonde mullet, but the frown of a heel and awful black & white tights. Ron’s in blue tights & JYD’s in red tights and is decidedly chunky.

Morton starts with JYD, Jim Ross reemphasizing the “DECIDED” weight disadvantage as he is wont to do, and Morton immediately starts wrestling himself, getting flung back on lockups and sailing over on a back body drop and JYD’s all-fours headbutts put him on the floor. DDP/JYD go and THIS is where things could turn into a complete disaster, but Page mostly just sells and bounces around off simple shit, which is the smart play. Ron comes in and clotheslines DDP down, then press-slams Morton, but misses a dropkick when DDP grabs the ropes. A double-elbow keeps him down, but Ron ducks a double-clothesline and takes them both out- JYD knocks noggins to send Morton flying out of the ring, sticks DDP’s head between his legs and jumps down for a necksnap, DDP knowing to shake his legs with fear even at this point in his career. DDP demands a test of strength (“this has gotta be a trick- DDP can not be this stupid!”) and gets his hands stomped for it, but is able to catch JYD charging in and puts him down with a clothesline. Some ugly strike-trading happens, but DDP quickly grabs a sleeper, then switches off with Morton behind the ref’s back, and the ref OF COURSE misses Ron tagging in so doesn’t allow that- JR is AGHAST at this inconsistency, admitting he hates to criticize the refs who have a very hard job to do, but you have to be consistent, DARN IT. JYD slumps down but Page can’t get the pin, and an International has them collide. Morton is able to get the drop on him after getting tagged, then JYD goes into the corner again- Morton covers and gets FLUNG (ie. jumps) off, immediately tagging out for another double-team. But this time Morton nails DDP and stands there stunned until panicking when Ron comes in! Simmons beats both guys’ asses- Morton hits the floor to fight with JYD and Page goes to the eyes of Ron, but misses two clothesline and Ron flies in with the Jumping Shoulderblock and that’s it at (8:22)- JYD & Ron win!

Not a bad match! Not bad at all! Damn near miraculous given the limitations set out there, but everyone but JYD did a good job. I was particularly impressed with Page, who is literally in his first year wrestling at this point and is already bumping well, cowering, shaking with fear, taunting babyface and then acting like their offense is deeply troubling, and more. I mean, he was a running joke in the sheets and online until 1997 or so so it’s funny to see him as a perfectly cromulent undercard heel in 1992. He was a funny dweeb. Morton definitely ran a good match (you had to know he was calling it)- the frequent tags keep up the action even if it’s simple- they’re only doing clotheslines and sleepers for the most part, but that’s about all JYD can sell, so frequently tagging out and cheating is the right way to play it, especially if the Dog is playing… Ricky Morton to Ricky Morton. JYD at least managed not to mess up too much- he was slow and fat but he’s over enough that he’s a tolerable seller.

Rating: ** (a testament to Morton & Page)

THE ROCKERS (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty) vs. LA RESISTANCE (Robert Conway & Sylvain Grenier):
(WWE RAW, March 14th 2005)
* From the VERY short period where Marty Jannetty had come out of nowhere for an interesting comeback in 2005, he was paired up with Shawn as old friends. This ended up flaming out because… it’s MARTY, but it was fun seeing him around with a fire under his ass. La Resistance were the top heel team of the time, but usually booked as dorks who were easily beaten by serious wrestlers. Shawn & Marty go deep in nostalgia with the ROCKERS theme and are actually called that name by Lilian Garcia, and Marty’s got shitloads of tassels all over his red tights, and cool ’80s shades. Shawn’s in red tights from around this era. La Rez are in white, and this time are Conway (an American traitor who was thrown onto the team as a “solid hand” who could work) and Grenier (a rookie who went nowhere).

Marty starts with Grenier, and immediately does his usual “spin around and walk backwards” thing he does at the start of all his old matches. He howls and barks when Grenier works the arm, but counters and does his “hop over the arm and roll over the guy’s back to armdrag him” thing and does some deep armdrags until he misses a charge and La Resistance work him over with a double hiptoss. But Marty quickly tags in Shawn and they do the same- the old Rockers “double-hiptoss to double-elbows & kip-ups”. I mean both fall on their ass trying the last one but it’s the move! La Rez are shitcanned to the floor (lol one catches his neck on the bottom rope- the failed shitcan!) and it’s double pescados! The fans are… polite but not LOUD, really. But Conway pulls down the ropes so Shawn eats shit on the floor, and a drop on the guardrail gets two. La Rez use “Johnny Ace Era” walk & punch tactics, a suplex, and a chinlock. Marty’s knocked off the apron to prevent a tag and they use the Hart Attack! Mary slides in to stop the pin and Shawn fires back with chops on Conway and explodes out with his forearm smash. A kip-up, shove of Grenier into Conway, and a forward roll sees Marty hit the ring with the hot tag- La Rez bump and feed for him and his ’80s offense (punches! bodyslams! dropkicks!) and Marty facebusters Grenier when he puts his head down. Shawn comes in with Sweet Chin Music to Conway and that leaves Marty free to do an arm twist into the Rocker Dropper and score the pin at (6:01). The Rockers win, and Marty gets the pinfall!

A quick, decent TV match- La Resistance weren’t a good team but they were find “ring filler” and could bump & feed like WWE wanted in that era. The match plan was simple- show off Marty a bit, then have him sell, then have Shawn get worked over so Marty can get the hot tag and the win. It wasn’t so much dominant but it was a pretty handily-won match for the Rockers, as the second they got a hot tag they won easily.

Rating: ** (the usual “RAW Zone”- nothing fancy but nothing bad)

JUVENTUD GUERRERA, SUPER CALO & CICLOPE vs. KONNAN, LA PARKA & VILLANO IV:
(WCW SuperBrawl VII, Feb. 23rd 1997)
* One of the very early Lucha 6-mans in WCW sees them fill time on a PPV in early 1997! This was back when Konnan was the US Champion, but more intermingled with the lucha guys than he ended up being. Most of these guys had been in WCW since the previous summer, so they weren’t total unknowns, but this was definitely the Jobber Division quotient except for Konnan, who has dropped his roided trunks look and is dressing like a dirtbag.

Ciclope works simple arm stuff with Villano IV as Mike Tenay goes into the history of the Villanos, named for a role their father played in an El Santo movie in the 1960s. Konnan goes with Juvi and the style clash is apparent- he can’t do “lucha stuff” like flips, so he awkwardly stands there sometimes and throws random strikes as Juvi misses a spinkick, and Konnan lands his forward-roll clothesline and goes “Arriba la Raza!” as he does. Juvi headscissors him to the floor, but Konnan suckers him and slides back into the ring, only to eat a springboard dropkick to the mush. But Konnan quickly counters a rollup to a wheelbarrow German and beats up both other guys, including powerbombing Ciclope the second he gets into the ring. Calo’s first move to La Parka is to fling himself upside-down into the corner, getting caught with a kick but moving and Parka SMOKES the post with his shoulder, making these guys look like psychos. Calo gets his “get launched to the top & do a reverse headscissors” spot but gets clotheslined as Bobby Heenan marvels “His HAT’s still on!”, then Parka gets Mulkey Bumped through the ropes and Calo dropkicks him flinging through them himself and follows with a giant slingshot senton! But he splats springing off the middle rope, so Parka sits him in a chair and hits a tope suicida to him like THAT. Insane for early 1997.

Villano & Ciclope do another ugly-ass clunky routine, ending with Ciclope in a MASSIVE botch as he slips trying a Springboard Moonsault to the floor, eating shit and probably hitting his head. They slot it down in the ring a bit before Ciclope leaves so Juvi can come in, and he IMMEDIATELY hits his 450 Splash, fucking it up and kneeing Villano in the head, and he kicks out anyways. Juvi lands on his feet from a German & spinkicks him down as I catch Ciclope taking a rest on the floor, haha. Juvi misses a corner clothesline and La Parka immediately splatters him with a flying cannonball, then sets him up top so they can both stand on the top rope and end up in Juvi’s old “crotch the guy then rana him into the ring” spot that he’d eventually drop due to all the botches. But he’s immediately caught in a Doomsday Device from the other two, then a double-team spinebuster into… one of those weird goofy lucha multiman submissions that they’d eventually stop in WCW because it looks weird and like… TOO fake, and nobody knew what was supposed to hurt which guy as everyone scrambles around and randomly pokes at each other. lol you can actually see fans in the stands looking at it like “WTF is going on?”. Everyone kinda randomly does punches until Juvi takes a monster fall from Konnan lifting him and tossing him backwards over the ropes. Calo & Ciclope are smashed together and held in “the star” (a double bow-legged submission), then Parka smashes Juvi onto the pile and surfboards him above everyone. Heenan: “I’ll give you a thousand dollars to tell me who’s the legal guy in the ring!”. Juvi’s team manages to dropkick the others to the floor and hit TRIPLE stereo dives for the best reaction so far, but in the ring Konnan goes down like shit for a flash-pin from Juvi, then kicks out and immediately hits a sit-out Razor’s Edge-style powerbomb and Juvi dramatically kicks out at two… as the ref awards the match to Konnan’s team (10:24), Konnan looking at him like “what the fuck? Seriously?” as commentary is confused.

hahah this was going swimmingly and then they started fucking up stuff and having to slow the match down at the same time, then they botched the FINISH, too. Meltzer gave this ***3/4 like a goof, but it really just had a super hot opening before the clunkiness and messed-up spots began. But I can see how this would earn better ratings in 1997 when this was all brand-new stuff and it was positively INSANE to see a slingshot senton from in the ring to the floor or a 450 Splash on TV. The multi-man submission spots are a cute side-thing in lucha, but here you can see fans going “WTF?” with their expressions, craning their necks around and looking super confused. I guarantee some agent backstage was like “NEVER do that shit in WCW again”, because you almost never saw things like that again. It’s way too confusing for US fans because it looks like a combination of way too fake, stupid and comedic, out of nowhere, and nobody can tell what’s going on- never mind US wrestling doesn’t have “pin someone in a dogpile” spots so it breaks established rules a bit more than WCW was probably comfortable with (their “lucha” typically only kept the tag rules, not anything else like muliple falls or “pin everybody to win a fall”). Overall, though, the match seemed like a big showcase for Konnan & Juvi. Juvi got to show off 2-3 of his crazy flip moves and that he was the next most acrobatic guy in wrestling behind Rey, and Konnan got to beat up everyone, barely sell, hit the big moves and score the win.

Rating: **1/4 (kind of sad, because it was looking like a REALLY good ***+ match for the first few minutes, and then they got the yips, threw a few spots out that the fans didn’t get AT ALL, and then botched the finish.

MR. FUJI & MR. SAITO (w/ Captain Lou Albano) vs. SD JONES & CURT HENNIG:
(WWWF All Star Wrestling, Oct. 22nd 1981)
* Dig today’s jobbers! Randomly a babyfaced Curt Hennig shows up to be murdered. Fuji & Saito are chasing Rick Martel & Tony Garea for the WWWF Tag Team Titles, so this is to heat them up. I’ve never seen Fuji this young before- he already looks like shit. Red “Samoan shorts” hiked up to his moobs and looking like he’s done with this shit. Saito is way more muscular. Fuji does a salt routine in the corner (a heel bit going back to the 1950s with the Great Moto & Great Yamoto- pre-match stalling to annoy the fans as Gorgeous George had, this time with an ethnic flair). Jones is in light blue trunks & Hennig dark blue.

Fuji starts with SD Jones, quickly headbutting him in the chest and staying on with a lot of strikes, then snapmaring him into Saito’s 2nd-rope kneedrop. Jones KICKS OUT AT ONE (omg did he invent that spot? All AEW wrestlers owe him a debt!), but Saito has him reeling with Mongolian chops & other karate. Fuji with a vertical suplex for two, and Jones headbutts Saito and fires up, but a savate kick ends that and Hennig comes in and does AMATEUR WRESLTING~~ with Saito. By which I mean he rolls around a bunch while Saito “fails to hold him” and gets flustered- classic stuff I see in Backlund matches. Saito CRANKS on a headlock takeover, then does an STO (!) and works a nervehold. Jones sneaks a tag and starts beating on Fuji, who begs off but scores two karate chops to drop him again- you can tell it’s karate because he does “hi ya” poses with his hands afterwards. Back body drop/2nd-rope knee gets two, but Jones gets a sunset flip as Vince & Pat Patterson have been DEAD SILENT for minutes at a time. Hennig gets a simple snapmare & dropkick and girls are heard SQUEALING for him as Saito begs off, but Curt charges into the post and thrashes around like a fish- Fuji does a theatrical headbutt, misses, but just… kicks Curt anyways and tags out. Fans were INTO that, too. Saito appears to choke him and stops a “Let’s go Curt!” comeback with a hairpull. Fuji ends another comeback by tagging out and Saito fires overhand chops, but Fuji’s slow beating ends up with him clearly signalling Hennig to make the comeback and tag out- headbutts for everyone! Double noggin-knocker and the fans go BANANA! But Saito just savate kicks him in the gut, then the throat and SD tumbles to the floor where Albano stomps on him. Jones makes another comeback, crawling under Fuji twice, and Hennig’s back with a dropkick, but he whips Saito the corner and charges into a BIG dropkick, and a Backdrop Suplex finishes at (9:08).

WWWF stuff was super-weird. All these micro-comebacks by the jobbers and the fans were seriously into Curt at various points (and they were not into ANYTHING else on this show save some Andre abuse of jobbers and ripping on Magnificent Muraco), but Fuji & Saito’d just cut them off immediately and tag out like “fuck you we’re selling for jobbers”. So the match is SUPER long for what it needs to be and isn’t at all competitive even though the fans seemed to want it. I was flipping through this show and I got the sense that even Vince & Pat were bored- WWWF TV was awwwwwwwwwwful around this time- squashes routinely took 5-6 minutes and were lazy, lackadaisical affairs with bored fans. This is the only match that had the fans crazy into bits, and of course the heels just cut them off every single time it happened.

Rating: 1/2* (one of the weirdest squashes ever- it’s so oddly-paced and wrestled!)

JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS vs. WHO:
(WWF Superstars, Aug. 8th 1996)
* Holy shit a PPV Main Event on free TV! Okay that PPV is Heroes of Wrestling, but still! This is Who’s final appearance on TV as he quickly loses his job again.

Who attacks Jake right when he enters the ring, hitting a bunch of overhand shots- Jake fires back with jabs but goes down to an eyerake & clothesline. Jake does his usual “crumple up and sell” thing and tries to rally a comeback, only to be choked in the ropes a lot. The ugliest snapmare ever ends another Jake comeback, but he ducks a clothesline and Who splats. The short-arm clothesline sets up the DDT with a lot of build, and we’re done at (2:45). Jake looked awful and drunk (as Perfect accused him of being on commentary)- just ramrod-straight all match long and clunkily going into everything.

Rating: 1/2* (again, a terrible semi-competitive match- just Who dominating him with ugly offense that Jake can’t sell well, then the DDT- at least the finisher is over)

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: KTB (aka Kyle Winant, Kyle the Beast, Kyle Smiley, Falcor):
Appearances: #497 in 1999, #420 in 2000, #393 in 2001, #328 in 2002, #327 in 2003

-A very short, squat indie guy. KTB apparently stands for “Kyle the Beast” and he hails from “The Woods”. He’s apparently been wrestling since *2006*, which makes him one of those indie lifers who never went anywhere, but he seems an okay-ish worker. Just VERY short (like 2 inches shorter than Jungle Boy, who is himself undersized). Cagematch says he’s 6’1″ which is either a rib or someone wasn’t checking. He debuted as Kyle Smiley in East Coast Pro Wrestling in 2006, but his CM profile goes blank in 2008 for five years, before turning up as one of those “wrestles in every indie for a few matches a year” guys as Kyle Winant. He mostly performs in Game Changer Wrestling, where I see he encounters Jungle Boy, Marko Stunt and other AEW guys, and he becomes “KTB” circa 2018 or so- looks like GCW actually goes up and down the Eastern US, as I see cards in Illinois, Florida, New York, PA, etc. (checking it out, it’s apparently where Nick Gage does his shit and it’s highly controversial, basically considered a Temu ECW but has its own band of hardcore supporters). He only got a handful of AEW squashes in the “AEW Dark” era (2020-21) before his career seems to have petered out in recent years.

Man, Jungle Boy looks like something out of vintage gay erotica from the 1950s. um, I mean, I bet!

JUNGLE BOY (w/ Luchasaurus) vs. KTB:
(AEW Dark, Oct. 20th 2020)
* omg YESSSSSSSSSSSSS a random AEW Dark squash is what I find! Dark sorta popped up during COVID as a way to keep wrestlers working during the shutdowns, and lasted a good while, mostly with Tazz doing his most casual commentary possible, turning into a meme with how unseriously he was taking it. He marks out over KTB being billed from “The Woods” and Ricky Starks suggests his name stands for “Killing The Business” as KTB throws up devil horns and acts like a bad imitation of a 1980s wrestler. Poor Jungle Boy doesn’t have “Tarzan Boy” as his theme yet, and comes out with Luchasaurus spraying him from a water bottle to make him look… glisteny?

KTB bullies Jungle Boy before the match, giving him a shove while revealing he’s even shorter than the 5’7″ babyface, then JB backflips over a charge, slides under him and hits a dropkick. KTB puts him on top to avoid a monkey flip, but runs into a kick & the flying headscissors. He avoids a dive but gets kicked in the head, but is able to drop Jungle Boy on the top rope belly-first and takes a running leap into him from there. KTB gears up and does a forward roll into a shoulder-charge in the corner, then a snapmare into an interesting leaping back senton off the ropes for two. Jungle Boy throws some slaps to the titties to come back, then a schoolboy and a chest-kick, and KTB eats a bunch of shots before hitting a dragon screw, grabs the leg and forward-rolls until he has JB in a fireman’s carry (cool!), then slams him off forwards for a pin attempt. He grabs Jungle Boy’s beautiful, beautiful hair to come back, but JB absorbs some knees and pops him, but KTB catches him with a Manhattan drop/leaping splash combo for two. KTB doesn’t stay on him (called out by Excalibur) and this time his rolling shoulder charge is countered to a knee. Jungle Boy manages a comeback, scores a lariat & dragon screw of his own, then a tope suicida, then a slingshot DDT (KTB exposes the business by just standing there, clearly observing JB’s entire motion with his eyes and head to get the timing right) for two. Jungle Boy is like “alright” and charges- he goes over the top but gets that apron-kick again, but this time is caught in a Razor’s Edge position and is… forward flipped into a knee shot. Kinda wimpy but okay. Jungle Boy BARELY kicks out. KTB can only try and finish with a Moonsault, missing- JB misses a kick but elbows him in the back of the head, which sets up a Flying Double-Kneedrop for the pin at (5:27). Was that his finisher then?

This felt very much like those “be nice to the indie guy” bouts you saw frequently on WWE Velocity, where the star would led the indie guy get in all his signature offense before reliably picking up the win. Like going up for ALL his shit, even kicking out of what’s probably a finisher (that Go 2 Sleep takeoff thing). In this case it works because Jungle Boy was an established tag wrestler and underdog, so even a 5’5″ ruffian could believably throw him around. Ref Aubrey Edwards was her typical “theatrically overreact to every move” self, which looks way worse on Dark because it tends to use a basic “hard cam” shot that shows everyone so you can see her wince and sell every single strike, lol. Match was fine but dull- the lack of crowds in the Daily’s Place era had them all wrestling in a giant outdoor void, and they were obviously doing a “do a hot move then slow it down” thing for the Internet show. Jungle Boy is a solid underdog and can sell rather than having to rely on MOVEZ (his own are rather basic and weak- he fights more like a 1996 Cruiserweight that today’s theatrical flippy guys), so KTB being 5’5″ but wider made him a more dominating force, so Jungle Boy had to choose his spots and slowly pick away at him.

Rating: ** (pretty okay fairly competitive match, but obviously a “Internet show nobody watches” effort)