Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part 29 (7/16 - 7/22)
It's a Bash, and it's at the Beach! Plus, UWFi tag action, awesome Memphis brawls, vignettes, and BONUS CONTENT featuring Phantasio!
If you haven’t read it already, please check out my introductory article that explains what this series is all about. As a reminder, footage is sourced from the Goodhelmet 1995 Yearbook, unless otherwise stated.
This week at The Dive, we take a brief glimpse at WCW Bash at the Beach. Plus, more stuff from the USWA/SMW rivalry, another UWFi shoot-style tag match, Hulk Hogan visiting the Dungeon of Doom, assorted segments and vignettes, and a healthy dose of BONUS CONTENT featuring an infamously bad gimmick in an era loaded with them.
Well…
JULY 16th
WWF Wrestling Challenge - Wrestling Challenge kicks us off for the second consecutive week in its final appearance in this review series. This time, it's BONUS CONTENT featuring a truly legendary bit of WrestleCrap.
PHANTASIO vs. Tony DeVito - Oh, boy. It's the one and only televised appearance of the USWA's Spellbinder, rechristened “Phantasio” during his super-brief WWF run. Technically, Harry Del Rios was a WWF signing from years prior, but was shipped down to Memphis to hone his craft. He was kind of a proto-developmental athlete before OVW, FCW, or the Performance Center were a thing. As for the gimmick, the guy does magic tricks like he's at a kid's birthday party. Being an IRL amateur magician when he wasn't grappling, Del Rios incorporated a lot of that into his gimmick.
On his way to the ring, he turns a torch into a walking stick to the amazement of JR and Gorilla. In the ring, smoke comes out of his hat! Shock and awe! The Master Illusionist, per JR, takes off his mask to reveal identical facepaint. Phantasio appears to have swallowed a lot of tinfoil, so he’s pulling that shit out. I hope he didn’t have metal fillings. That would SUCK.
He gifts the mask and scads of foil to a kid at ringside. That's just not sanitary.
And yes, that is former ECW Baldie and ROH World Tag Team Champion DeVito with the long hair and greenish-blue singlet.
Goofy gimmick aside, Phantasio looked pretty jacked. Not surprising that he did some bodybuilding in the day. We start off with some basic stuff until Phantasio shoots…web, I guess, from his fingers to scare the crap out of DeVito.
More vanilla offense resumes with some hiptosses and armdrags. They work an arm wringer for a bit until Phan lands a flying shoulderblock, then some bodyslams! EXCITING.
The finish of the match comes when Phantasio hits an atomic drop, reaches into DeVito's singlet, yanks out his underpants Grampa Simpson-style, and rolls him up in all the confusion.
DUD - Dazzling, Utterly Dazzling. I can kind of see this stuff appealing to little kids, but it's not a gimmick with a long shelf life or one that would translate into a main-event push. Phantasio's offense was competently-done generic boilerplate stuff outside of the silly magic tricks, and that finish is an all-time turd. After this showing, it’s not surprising that we don't have a large catalog of Phantasio matches on the WWE Network to sift through.
After the match, with his underwear lust still not satiated, Phantasio reaches into Earl Hebner's pants and snags a pair of (naturally) black- and white-striped boxers. GET IT?!?? Because he’s a referee!
Phantasio had a house show win over Rad Radford before vanishing for good. That's a hell of a disappearing act. He didn't do too much of note after, except for an appearance as Del Rios in the first ever NWA-TNA show. Basically, he looked like Scott Steiner if you ordered him off Temu.
A bit crazy to think that the jobber in that match would have more notoriety in the years following. DeVito would be in a featured act in ECW and hold the ROH tag belts during one of their hottest periods. He wasn't immune to having shitty one-off appearances on Fed television, though…
WCW Main Event - We get a bit of footage from what is essentially the pre-show for Bash at the Beach. We catch up with Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman. Hulk's got ROD THE BOD in his corner and cuts a promo on Vader ahead of their steel cage match. The Worm rips off his shirt and talks shit to Vader. I'm sure that's the last we'll see Hogan and Rodman teaming up…
Eric Bischoff hangs out with some of the ladies from the hit television show “Baywatch”. In fact, portions of this PPV, particularly from the last couple of matches, were filmed as part of the seasons 6 episode, creatively titled “Bash at the Beach”.
Mean Gene is with some dude from Harley Davidson and a couple of kids who are looking to gift Hulk Hogan with a motorcycle.
However, a then-unnamed The Giant comes out and throws his shirt at Hogan and yells “REMEMBER THIS?!?”.
Hogan knows this shirt! It belonged to Andre the Giant! Yup, WCW really tried to sell us on Paul Wight being the son of Andre looking for revenge against Hulk Hogan.
Because it’s the BatB pre-show, here’s the matches that happened:
Johnny B. Badd pinned Chris Kanyon.
Road Warrior Hawk defeated Mark Starr.
Dick Slater & Bunkhouse Buck defeated Marcus Bagwell & Alex Wright. After the match, Vader came out and beat the snot out of the babyfaces and other wrestlers that tried to intervene.
WCW Bash at the Beach - This time, WCW was being literal with that show title as they were on an actual beach. Huntington Beach, to be exact. The official attendance was around 9,500, all of whom are unpaid. That didn't stop WCW from going BERSERK with the inflated attendance numbers, with the claims at times shooting up to 100,000 strong. It did make for a unique visual, even if most of the wrestling was boring as sin.
A fun bit of Wrestling Observer LORE: Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez were both at the show but didn't interact with each other. Probably because they didn't really know each other then, and Big Dave attended the show with Wade Keller.
Because the full show was a weapons-grade ass sandwich, we cut ALL the way to the ending of the Hulk Hogan vs. Vader cage match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Vader hits Hulk with a top-rope splash…but Hogan HULKS UP.
Hogan no-sells Vader's stuff and several trips into the cage, then throws Vader into the cage repeatedly. Hogan hits a couple of big boots, but Kevin Sullivan and The Zodiac come out…but Dennis Rodman chases them off.
Hogan hits a pair of legdrops and goes to escape, but Vader cuts him off. Hogan chops Vader off the cage and escapes to retain.
I am honestly shocked that Hogan didn't just pin Vader considering that he was free to do the job after dropping the UWFi title. Vader still got to look weak, tough, with Hogan making sure to hot-dog between the legdrops. The full match was quite MID at best.
After the match, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson accost Vader for losing, setting up a program with those three.
Vader throws out the challenge to both guys and sprays copious amounts of saliva into the camera.
Everything else that happened:
Sting (c) rolled up Meng to retain the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship in a disappointingly dull encounter. Meng attacked the champ after the match, prompting Road Warrior Hawk to make the save.
Renegade (c) retained the WCW World Television Championship in controversial fashion against Paul Orndorff. Mr. #1derful got his shoulder up during the pin count, but Nick Patrick missed it, resulting in a tainted victory for the Wish.com Warrior. The crowd was not buying what WCW was selling with Renegade, as Orndorff was getting babyface heat at times.
Kamala pinned “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan after interference from The Zodiac. This was what you would expect (i.e. aggressively boring).
Diamond Dallas Page defeated Evad Sullivan with the DIAMOND CUTTAH in another plopper.
In a three-way match for the WCW World Tag Team Championship, Harlem Heat (c) successfully defended against The Nasty Boys and The Blue Bloods in a flat match with a weird ending that went over the crowd’s heads. Basically, Jerry Sags had Booker T covered, but Booker was on top of Steven Regal. The ref counted the pin in favor of The Heat.
In a Lifeguard match, “Macho Man” Randy Savage defeated Ric Flair. The “lifeguards” included Diamond Dallas Page, Max Muscle, Booker T, Stevie Ray, Dave Sullivan, Arn Anderson, Johnny B. Badd, Dick Slater, Bunkhouse Buck, Chris Kanyon, Mark Starr, Jim Duggan, Brian Knobbs, Jerry Sags, and several lovely ladies in swimsuits.
So, yeah, this show was a definite contender for worst of the year. It likely won’t take the brown crown as we already had King of the Ring and Uncensored, and there’s more turds yet to come, but it's up there.
JULY 17th
WWF Monday Night RAW - The train o'crap keeps rolling as we get another segment with Isaac Yankem, D 👇 D 👇S 👇. This time, a young boy has an abscessed tooth that needs to be PULLED.
Jerry Lawler wishes it was Bret Hart in that chair! Isaac is struggling mightily to get that tooth out, but he finally extracts it. Yankem stares unsettlingly at the (pixelated) tooth while Lawler directs threats at Bret and his family.
Geez, SOMEBODY liked the music video for Green Day’s “Geek Stink Breath”.
JULY 18th
ECW Hardcore TV - We catch up with The Gangstas. They're coming for BELTS CHAMPIONSHIPS! New Jack puts over the toughness of The Public Enemy, but he's going to take the fight to THEIR hood!
New Jack threatens to set TPE on fire as Mustafa grunts and makes loud noises as per usual.
JULY 22nd
UWFi Soul The UWFi Spirits - Another week, another box of stolen pens shoot-style tag encounter from our friends at UWFi.
Kazushi Sakuraba & Naoki Sano vs. Joe Malenko & Yoji Anjo - This should be interesting. In addition to previously-seen shoot-style stalwarts Anjo and Sano, we have Dean Malenko’s less famous, but still highly-skilled, older brother and Kazushi Sakuraba, the Gracie Killer himself.
Sano and Anjo start us off with some intense grappling, parried kicks, and sweet counters. Joe tags in and goes at ‘er with Sano, holding his own. Premium graps to start us off, folks. Malenko burns a rope break to escape a leglock. Malenko gets some takeovers, but Sano gets the better of the grappling with crazy improvised submissions.
Sakuraba enters the match and hits the mat with Malenko. Joe gets the advantage and drags Saku into his corner. Anjo tags in and lays in some knees, but Sakuraba tries a Boston crab. However, Anjo escapes, but Saku snags a legbar to force a rope break. 21-19 in favor of Team Saku. A takeover from Anjo brings the score to 20-19, then Anjo gets a half-crab with an arm trap, like a shoot-style Tequila Sunrise!
Saku grabs the ropes to break, then Anjo fucking WRECKS him with a leg kick and tags in Joe. He forearms the back and locks in a dragon sleeper!
Saku flips up to escape, then Anjo comes in to BEAT HIS ASS with kicks and knees. Saku collapses, making the score 19-16. Sakuraba catches a kick, takes Anjo down, and it's PAYBACK TIME as he rains down the slaps on Anjo! Sakuraba gets a scorpion deathlock!
Anjo grabs the ropes, but Sakuraba kicks the absolute shit out of him on the ground! Sano comes in and hits a spinning back kick like it was Pro Wrestling on the NES, then launches him with an overhead belly-to-belly! Sano suplexes Anjo and locks in a choke, but Anjo makes the ropes. 17-16 now for Team AnJoe. Sano snatches a Boston crab, but Anjo, after some struggle, makes the ropes. We're square at 16 now as Joe tags back in. Sano hits the inverted tiger suplex and works a chicken wing.
Sano locks it in, but Joe gets the ropes. Sakuraba tags in and gets some brutal kicks. Sakuraba gets a jujigatame, but Malenko breaks via the ropes, putting his team down 16-14. Anjo checks back in and kicks Saku's planted leg as he was going for a kick, knocking him on his ass. Saku breaks a hold via the ropes, then Anjo launches him with a German suplex! The score is 14-all now as Anjo grabs a guillotine choke. Malenko tags in and gets a butterfly lock, kinda like YOSHI-HASHI.
Sakuraba tries to escape with strikes, but concedes and breaks via the ropes. He then knees and kicks the bejesus out of Joe, knocking him down to make the score 13-11. Malenko snatches a leglock out of nowhere to force a rope break. Anjo tags back in and grapples with Saku for a bit, landing a rear-naked choke to force a rope break, tying the score at 11. Sano and Joe tag back in, with Sano knocking Joe down with a DROPKICK! 11-8 now as Joe starts striking more with some European uppercuts. However, Sano wrestles his way into a dragon sleeper. Sano sinks in the body scissors and Joe taps! IT'S JOEVER! Sano and Sakuraba win!
****1/4 - Another fantastically fun UWFi tag match. I liked this one more than some of the others because of the sheer intensity in the matwork and the strikes. Joe Malenko was far more grappling-centric than the other three, but his matwork was very creative and fit the tone of the match well. He had some nifty counters as well (the butterfly lock in particular was sweet). The other three had great matwork, but it was their suplexes and strikes that really had me going. Sakuraba in particular SERIOUSLY amped up the aggression after Anjo cooked him with strikes earlier in the match. Anjo and Sano again brought the goods with their interactions. A bit of goofiness aside (a fucking DROPKICK in a shoot-style match? Really?), this was an absolute blast.
USWA Championship Wrestling - We’re walkin’ in Memphis this week with arena clips of Rock N’ Roll Express vs. PG-13 in a Texas Death Match. The latter come in and give the former a good ol’ hubcappin’ and beat up a prone Mark Curtis.
We cut to Ricky Morton going for a sunset flip, but JC Ice throws suspicious white powder into his face. He covers Ricky for a pin.
We cut to the Express introducing a table into the match. They trap Wolfie D in the corner with it and Ricky dropkicks the table into him!
We cut to Wolfie D DDTing Morton onto the table TWICE. The craftsmanship on that table is immaculate because it never breaks. All the pay the wrestlers didn’t get apparently went towards furniture.
Mark Curtis revives Ricky with a bucket of water, but another referee chases him off. Shortly after, Morton attempts a piledriver on the table, but JC Ice backdrops him off in a nasty bump for Ricky. PG-13 then pummel both guys with hubcaps! Buddy Landel runs in and decks the ref, but HE eats a hubcap. Jerry Lawler runs in to fight off Budro. PG-13 hit a spike piledriver, but Tracy Smothers comes in and smashes a bottle over JC Ice's head!
Ricky covers for the pin, and JC Ice is out cold. JC can’t answer the ten count, giving the match to the Rock N’ Roll Express! Tracy Smothers cuts a ranting promo on the crowd afterwards. We only had clips here, but what we got was an AWESOME Memphis brawl with tons of heat and HATRED. The full match is about ****1/4 and can be found on YouTube. It’s well-worth checking out.
We kick it back to Lance Russell and Dave Brown at the studio to recap the goings-on. They throw it to a backstage promo from the Rock N’ Rolls, Tracy Smothers, and a convalescing Mark Curtis. They are REAL MEN who plan on taking over the USWA. They throw out a challenge for a six-man tag against anyone the USWA has to offer. Good fire from Tracy and Morton in particular. Smothers, like the others here, slots into the heel role with ease.
We now cut to PG-13 coming to the interview area to chat with Lance. It's gettin’ HEAVY with the Rock N’ Roll Express as JC Ice goes over the past transgressions. JC Ice says they have a plan, but Lance expresses hesitation about the plan's viability.
Wolfie D says they need not just a partner, but a MANIAC! He had Randy Hales call this guy up with the promise of $1,000 just to come to the studio and talk. And that maniac is… longtime rival TOMMY RICH. Wildfire comes out rocking a sweet pink shirt that almost camouflages him in the background.
PG-13 gives him the promised thousand dollarydoos and asks him to be their partner. Tommy is all like…
Rich walks off with the thousand bucks! Not exactly great financial planning by PG-13 here. Lance gives them the ol’ “I told ya so” as PG-13 pledges to find a partner.
Lance and David now discuss the recent events. Lance explains that outside of the ring, Tommy Rich is a FAMILY MAN and is puzzled as to why he's such an asshole on television. Think of your kids watching, Tommy! They then send it over to Corey Maclin in the ring for TAG TEAM ACTION!
Gorgeous George III & Pat Tanaka vs. PG-13 - Pat Tanaka at this point had left ECW and was signed to WCW, so this is likely a pitstop in between JTTS appearances for Turner. JC Ice and George start off with Ice shining early. Tanaka and Wolfie check in, with Wolfie slugging away at Pat. JC Ice comes in but falls victim to deadly martial artistry from Tanaka.
Suddenly, Mark Curtis shows up at the commentary desk with a Zack Morris cellphone.
The heels work over JC Ice for a bit as Curtis heads to the exit of the studio and lets in Robert Gibson and Tracy Smothers! They toss weapons into the ring and beat the holy hell out of PG-13. Jobbers come in to try to break it up to no avail. However, STEVEN DUNN of Well Dunn pulls Tanaka away from the fray. The beating continues otherwise unabated.
Tommy Rich comes out to save the day! Oh shit! The match was a means to an end, but this whole thing was another incredible piece of business. Tommy Rich adds another layer of intrigue to this story given his previous bad blood with PG-13 and the latter’s desperation for revenge on Smoky Mountain.
Smoky Mountain Wrestling - We see the Rock ‘N Roll Express with Les Thatcher who asks about them missing their tag title match against Unabomb & Al Snow last week, resulting in The Thugs taking their place and winning the belts. Ricky is upset at SMW about the match being changed.
The Thugs come out to rebut as Ricky accuses them of backstabbing while Smothers refutes this. Oh, there will be FAR more controversy between Ricky and Tracy. I'll get into THAT next time, but it’s a doozy. Bullet Bob comes out and books a tag title match for the upcoming SuperBowl of Wrestling supercard on August 4th. Both parties agree to the terms as the Express walk away.
I’m wondering if they were angling to make the Rock ‘N Roll Express heels in SMW, too, because they come off as entitled dicks here.
WCW Saturday Night - We end the week with The Mothership. Again, we make a stop at the Dungeon of Doom. The Master and Kevin Sullivan detect the presence of a rare white Bengal tiger! FAAAAHTHAAAA!
Suddenly, Hulk Hogan is transported into the Dungeon!
“WHERE AM I? THERE'S NO HULKAMANIACS HERE!!” as I absolutely fucking HOWL with laughter.
Hulk touches the water from a nearby fountain and yells “AAAHH! IT'S NOT HOT!” as The Master calls to him.
Hogan yells a lot as Taskmaster threatens Hulk, saying his demise is ETCHED IN STONE as we pan to a large fella carved into the wall! Suddenly, The Giant breaks through the wall and attacks Hogan! He proclaims himself the greatest giant to ever live and the ONE TRUE IMMORTAL!
The baddies maniacally laugh as we fade out.
Holy. Shit. This was AMAZING camp. Incredibly stupid, yes, but I laughed SO HARD at this, especially Hogan's Tommy Wiseau-level acting. I take back every mean thing I've said about this stuff. The Dungeon of Doom is Actually Good.
That week certainly had some crap, but there were some highlights as well. The UWFi tag was excellent, and the SMW/USWA stuff is incredible. I had no idea about that stuff before I started this series, so this is another pleasant surprise.
Also, the Dungeon of Doom stuff with Hogan was fucking hilarious. 10/10, no notes.
NEXT TIME: It’s a BUSY one! We’ll have content from WWF In Your House II: THE LUMBERJACKS, another street fight from JWP, a couple of singles matches from the AJPW pillars, vignettes aplenty introducing new gimmicks, Bret and Hakushi going at it again, more USWA/SMW stuff, an all-time great promo, and more!
Smell ya later!