NWA Tri-State
Date: March 24, 2002
Location: Old High School, Harrisville, West Virginia
Commentators: Matt Fessenbecker, Litch Fit
The indy run continues as we dig up the NWA one more time. This is a show from a very weird time in wrestling history as WCW and ECW had been gone for about a year each and places like NWA TNA and Ring Of Honor weren’t factors yet. That means this is going to be a bit of the wild west (Virginia), but there are certainly some stars on the show. Let’s get to it.
Because WCW: A worker as respected as Jerry Lynn, and he’s in “Player 2” Rey Mysterio gear and jobs on the D-shows.
Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time we get a couple of double-whammies, as Chris Jericho takes on Jerry Lynn back when he was jobber “Mr. JL” on the WCW D-Shows! Then it’s Marty Jannetty vs. Pat Tanaka on WWF TV, but from two years apart- 1991 (when Tanaka was on a tag team) and 1993 (when he was a glorified jobber)!
And I also found a match from that odd period where Mona (Molly Holly) was suddenly able to get work for her indie buddies as WCW randomly had a women’s division again- she takes on Little Jeannie. Finally, another weirdo “Wait, THAT happened?” match, as Papi Chulo (Essa Rios) shows up on Super Astros… and his opponent is the fourth TIGER MASK!
CHRIS JERICHO vs. MR. JL:
(WCW Saturday Night, Aug. 31st 1996)
* Yes, it’s more of Jerry Lynn as a Rey Mysterio-like purple-clad Power Ranger, and Spunky Babyface Chris Jericho. Jericho’s got the bright, curly blonde locks and black & yellow tights here.
The legendary Jimmy Graffiti, the finest gimmick of “Gigolo” Jimmy Del Ray.
This week in the “Dream Matches”, here’s the most disappointing match between two all-time great workers possible! Plus Shawn Michaels trying to crawl up the WWF card in 1992 against the Texas Tornado! One of those matches only WCW could have, featuring Jimmy Del Ray as a rebellious young street tagger and Prince Nakamaki in a cheap Tiger Mask outfit! Oh, and New Japan legendary asshole Shinjiro Otani fights Jerry Lynn in his Luchadore/Power Rangers ripoff gear!
“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE vs. “STUNNING” STEVE AUSTIN (w/ Col. Robert Parker):
(WCW Saturday Night, 27.05.1995)
* Yes, an ultra-rare meeting between two of the greatest stars in the history of the business… passing like two ships in the night because Austin’s about to get dumped. “Stunning Steve” has a terrible receding hairline, wispy blond hair, black trunks & leather jacket, and no goatee, while Savage is in full Mega Powers colors, but with Slim Jim décor on his cowboy outfit. The winner of the match will face the winner of Ric Flair & Alex Wright. And before you get too excited and search this out, the YouTube video is only 7 minutes long and half of it’s pre-match bullshit.
Austin pokes the bear with a slap to start, and eats a back elbow and gets choked over the ropes for it. Austin goes to the eyes and brawls, but misses a flying splash (?!?) and Savage rams him into the Slim Jim post coverings (those don’t look painful at all) and the guardrail, then finishes with the Flying Elbow in the ring at (2:19). Haha, jesus christ.
Rating: * (TWO MINUTES. That’s all it got. Nice moves, as Austin was very smooth back in the day, but TWO MINUTES)
Ugh, it’s SINGLET Warrior- that’s always death.
It’s time for more Dream Matches! Including the weirdest “final bout of the House Show” tag match ever! The ultimate battle of WCW Saturday Night: Hole In One versus LIGHTNING FOOT! An odd and very rare Heel vs. Heel Tag Title match on RAW! And a very interesting match featuring 1992 Sean Waltman & Jerry Lynn in a bout featuring a ton of Luchadors!
As always, WWE-owned clips are non-kosher to post here, but they’re all on YouTube.
THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR & BRET “HITMAN” HART vs. PAPA SHANGO & KAMALA (w/ Dr. Harvey Whippleman & Kim Chee):
(WWF Unreleased, Oct. 13th, 1992)
* Oh man, this is weird. Ultimate Warrior (in his “Brick Wall Singlet” era, no less!), just about done with the company, is teaming with the single WWF wrestler least like him against a guy they both have an issue with- Papa Shango possibly “cursed” the Hitman and he lost the IC Title, while he made the Warrior bleed black and puke his guts out on TV in one of the most bizarre, amazing, fantastic angles of 1992… before everyone was kind of just done with that gimmick. And Kamala’s teaming with him because he needs an extra guy, I guess (I mean, voodoo has its roots in African religions, but I doubt the booking team knew that). They’re clearly going with an “Undertaker” vibe with Shango, doing close-ups of “disturbed”, frightened children, but it’s just not taking- the gimmick’s too out there. Who would have guessed that the secret to Charles Wright was to make this 6’6″, 300-lb. tattooed guy a smiling babyface instead?
Hello You!
I decided to do a good TNA show this week, because believe it or not they did exist. I actually saw this show originally on The Wrestling Channel here in the UK, as they’d just started showing TNA (Even though they were a few months behind) and this show had FWA regular Jonny Storm on it, so they probably thought it was one of the better episodes to lead with when it came to showing the weekly TNA pay per views.
This show has a Super X Tournament, featuring 8 X Division guys from different parts of the world going at it for a trophy. There’s also a War Games match to close things out featuring the Main Event crew.
This was back when TNA was running a weekly pay per view on Wednesdays and was holding all their events in “The Asylum” in Nashville. It’s a pretty pokey building, but they managed to get a passionate bunch of regulars who were prepared to turn up and get into the action, which at least meant these shows normally had some decent atmosphere.
I was actually quite into TNA at the time due to them doing an ECW Invasion earlier in 2003, and because I was ECW starved at the time I thought it was really cool that guys like Saturn, New Jack, Sandman etc were still doing their thing. That got my foot in the door and allowed me to see that America’s Most Wanted were tearing up the tag scene and the X Division guys were having hot matches, which led to me being into the product pretty much until the whole Hogan and Bischoff thing drove me off never to return.
If memory serves, there’s some really good matches on this one, so let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
Hello You!
It’s time for some more ECW pay per view action, as we reach their October 2000 offering in the form of Anarchy Rulz. They’ve actually built this one up reasonably well, with a decent chunk of TV time being dedicated to the top two matches of Rhino Vs Rob Van Dam and Justin Credible Vs Jerry Lynn.
Both of those matches have the potential to be good, so let’s settle in and watch some chuffing wrestling!
–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes are calling tonight’s action and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia. According to thehistoryofwwe.com, these matches took place on November 29.
–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes call today’s action which, according to thehistoryofwwe.com, was taped on October 25 and November 16.
–WCW Champion Hulk Hogan shows up in Asheville, North Carolina on the Harley Davidson motorcycle he received at Bash at the Beach and is surrounded by his fans. Gene Okerlund interviews him, with Hogan hyping his journey through North Carolina, painting the Dungeon of Doom as anti-American. This offends the Giant as he takes a Dungeon of Doom monster truck and runs over Hogan’s motorcycle, forcing Hogan and his fans to flee. Hogan hilariously pounds on the side of the truck like a kid having a tantrum as the Giant laughs.
–Eric Bischoff and Dusty Rhodes are doing commentary and they are live from Asheville, North Carolina. They treat the destruction of Hogan’s motorcycle as a national tragedy.
–Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan are in the Mall of America for the last WCW telecast before the debut of Monday Nitro. Heenan continues to rant about how Steve McMichael should not be in the announce booth.
–Vince McMahon puts over the In Your House pay-per-view as the lead-in for today’s show.
–McMahon and Dok Hendrix are in the booth and they are concluding the tapings in Des Moines, Iowa. Hendrix repeats his claim from last week’s show that Henry Godwinn is likely working with the Million Dollar Corporation to weaken WWF Champion Diesel before tomorrow’s big show. Hendrix is also careful to call Sid “Super Sid” instead of “Psycho Sid.”
–Jim Ross and Todd Pettengill recap the Diesel-Bam Bam Bigelow match for the WWF title that occurred on Monday Night RAW, as well as how Bigelow turned face after the bout when he was beaten down by the Million Dollar Corporation.
–Ross and Pettengill are doing commentary for today’s show and they are taped from Moline, Illinois. The tapings took place on April 26 and had a papered attendance of 5,500.
–Ross and Pettengill announce that the 1-2-3 Kid was supposed to face Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental title on today’s show but he is injured. As a result, Bob Holly will face Jarrett instead. Jarrett says that he will show Holly how great he is, while Holly promises to cross the finish line.
by Logan Scisco
