Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part 48 (11/26 - 12/2)
"OBSERVE THIS, BROTHER!"
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.
How ya now?
This week of The Dive is about beginnings, returns, and endings. We usher in the end of Smoky Mountain Wrestling, then move to the inaugural installment of one of WCW’s worst gimmick matches. We get one of the first real looks into the paranoia of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and we see the return of Brother Love and Mr. Bob Backlund in the main event scene.
Well…
NOVEMBER 26th
SMW Thanksgiving Thunder (Cookeville)
Welp, here it is. The final show ever produced by Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The card is very similar to the previous night’s Johnson City show, including the main event and the surprise reveal.
Other stuff that happened:
Sgt. Rock pinned The Wolfman after a low blow and a DDT.
Butch Cassidy defeated Jim Cornette via disqualification at 17:45 (the fuck?) after interference from Sgt. Rock.
After this match, the show took an intermission. It was then that Cornette revealed to the locker room that the promotion was folding.
Buddy Landel & “The Bullet” beat Tommy Rich & The Punisher via pinfall in another Lumberjack match where Brad Armstrong serves as the sole ringside enforcer.
Landel pinned Punisher after a corkscrew elbow.
Of note, Rich does not bring the SMW title to the ring with him despite winning it the night prior.
The Heavenly Bodies & Robert Gibson vs. The Thugs & Ricky Morton - There’s no misdirection this time as it is indeed Richard Morton under the black sheet instead of Flash Flanagan. The bad guys immediately powder.
Whole lotta stalling by Cornette’s Militia before the bell. Like, a LOT. The faces spend the early part of the match getting shine on Dr. Tom Prichard, who yells “OW, MY ARM!”. Morton and Tracy Smothers again tease dissension, but end up beating down the Bodies instead. Prichard tags in Jimmy Del Ray, who immediately walks into a Dirty White Boy armdrag.
Gibson tags in and misses an elbow on Morton, then hastily scurries out. After a couple of minutes, Tracy is the designated face in peril. We get a tornado DDT from Del Ray and a clothesline from Gibson to thwart Smothers’ comeback. The beatdown continues until, for the third match in a row, Smothers blocks a second Del Ray tornado DDT. HOT TAG MORTON!
Morton runs wild until Gibson holds him in place for a Jim Cornette tennis racket shot…but Morton ducks! Morton covers Gibson for the win!
**1/4 - Very barebones, stall-heavy six-man that wasn’t nearly as good as the last two. At least the babyfaces actually WON, though, and the work was solid if unspectacular. It was six professional wrestlers professionally wrestling.
Post-match, everyone unites to beat the crap out of Cornette.
Mark Curtis gets a shot in and covers Cornette as the faces count the pin! The last recorded result for SMW is Curtis defeating Cornette, which is kinda nice. Curtis worked as hard as anyone behind the scenes keeping the company afloat.
The Bodies spend forever and a day teasing more beatings on Cornette, but end up helping him to the back.
And with that, we bid a fond farewell to Smoky Mountain Wrestling after an eventful and somewhat consistent four-year run. Founded in late 1991 by Jim Cornette and Sandy Scott, and clandestinely funded by legendary music producer Rick Rubin, SMW garnered some critical goodwill for its classic feel and angles, while showcasing a mixture of veterans and promising young talent. The company was never able to fully turn a profit, but they did show year-over-year financial growth, albeit small. However, that trend reversed in its last year, resulting in Rubin no longer financially backing the promotion in August 1995.
Cornette had hoped that the Thanksgiving Thunder shows, normally a major source of revenue for SMW, would gross enough money to help cover talent pay and television costs. Unfortunately, the shows drew about $13,000 less than the previous year, putting Cornette further behind the fiscal 8-ball.
Cornette did mention that he had the funds to keep the company chugging along for another six months or so, but after seeing the writing on the wall, decided to simply pull the plug. The wrestling and television industries have grown to outpace Smoky Mountain’s “use television to sell tickets to live events” business model, which had been how it was in wrestling for years. The television itself was getting more and more prohibitively expensive, with high production costs and more lucrative offerings from larger competitors driving up rights fees. The live events weren’t drawing enough money to cover the TV costs, and Smoky Mountain wasn’t able to purchase slots on local television stations, leaving the company unable to generate much of a footprint in desirable markets.
Wrestlers like Buddy Landel and Tracy Smothers came up to Cornette with financial backers in tow, offering to buy the promotion, but Jim turned down the offers as it just wasn’t worth it to keep going. Not only was it going to be a doomed financial venture, but Cornette was creatively tapped and likely burned out.
Cornette already had a gig in the WWF, so he had that to fall back on. He helped get a few of his guys work in the WWF midcard, like Tracy Smothers and Dirty White Boy while Buddy Landel would show up in The Fed before the year was out. The Heavenly Bodies worked ECW's December to Dismember show before going their separate ways while the Rock N’ Roll Express would work smaller promotions en route to gigs in WCW and the WWF.
Looking at things from a 1995 perspective, things started off rather foul with Boots the Cat nonsense, Chris Candido and Cactus Jack leaving, offensive angles involving The Gangstas and Cornette, and crappy Dirty White Boy singles matches. However, while there were still some rough patches (The Wolfman, Butch Cassidy, heel beatdowns out the ass), there was some great stuff to carry us the rest of the year. Thanks to guys like Buddy Landel, The Rock N’ Roll Express, The Thugs, The Heavenly Bodies, Al Snow, The Armstrongs, and several others, Smoky Mountain at least managed to finish on a relatively qualitative high.
WCW World War 3 1995
One era ends, and a new era dawns. It’s a terrible dawn, however, because the World War 3 battle royals are generally awful, and this is coming from someone that LOVES battle royals.
We open the show with Hulk Hogan, Sting, and “Macho Man” Randy Savage with “Mean” Gene Okerlund as Hogan’s Midlife Crisis World Tour makes a stop in Norfolk, Virginia.
Hogan, with the help of his two best friends, no longer walks on THE DARK SIDE, BROTHER. He sheds his black bandana and shirt to reveal the classic red and yellow, and the discarded garments are tossed into a garbage can and set ablaze. Hogan wants to be Sting’s friend FOREVER, and Savage apologizes for doubting the Stinger. Hogan then turns his attention to Savage’s arm injury, which is NOT legit! Macho Man’s arm is PERFECT! It was just a plan to fool the Dungeon of Doom! Hogan then holds up a copy of The Wrestling Observer newsletter and utters the immortal “OBSERVE THIS, BROTHER”!
The “ragsheet” says that The Giant is going to win and that Macho is injured, then says the Observer is like “a dinosaur compared to the internet” and tosses Meltzer’s life’s work into the fire. The internet’s got THE SCOOPS, BROTHER! Hulk pledges that the title will be in the Hogan camp by the end of the night.
That sure was…something. If you thought the Codyverse was bad, that was NOTHING compared to the Hoganverse shit WCW viewers had to endure. Plus, there’s apparently a rumor that Hogan didn’t burn a copy of the Observer, but of the PW Torch, which is kind of hilarious to me for some reason.
WCW World Television Championship: Johnny B Badd (c) vs. Diamond Dallas Page - This is yet another volume in the vast, vast, vast catalogue of matches between these two.
Not only is the TV title on the line, but so is the Diamond Doll’s managerial services. The ramp-up to this saw friction develop between DDP and Kimberly over the last several weeks. Johnny’s cape is very much my spirit animal.
The initial part of the match sees DDP and Badd brawling in and out of the ring, with Badd hitting a Samoan drop for two. They work a headlock into a top wristlock, but DDP yanks the hair and starts attacking Badd’s arm. DDP keeps pulling Badd’s hair to thwart his escapes, so Badd does some hair pullage of his own. DDP flies over the top rope after a missed charge, and Badd follows with a pescado. Page uses Kimberly as a shield, then decks Badd after pushing her into him. What a dick.
DDP works over Badd, hitting a NICE tilt-a-whirl pancake maneuver. However, he keeps stalling and taunting between moves. He asks for the perfect ten, but Kimberly declines. DDP hits a hard clothesline for two, then beats down Badd until he misses a corner charge. DDP tries to punt Badd but misses, resulting in Page taking a HUGE comedy bump, like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football. Badd mounts a comeback while DDP continues bumping like mad to get this over. Badd asks Kim for the ten, and she obliges with a 10+!
Badd hits a Ligerbomb for a CLOSE two, then DDP gets a near-fall via a roll-up with feet on the ropes. Tilt-a-whirl side slam from DDP, but Badd snags a crucifix pin for two. Flying headscissors from Badd, but a slingshot rounding splash hits DD-Knees. DDP follows with a gutbuster for another near-fall, but Badd hits a Tombstone piledriver for two! Badd punches Dallas to the floor, then hits the Badd Mood (somersault plancha), then a slingshot legdrop for the three! Badd retains the title and gains the services of Kimberly!
***1/4 - Rock-solid, fun opener from a couple of relatively limited, inexperienced workers. While the bouts aren’t going to threaten the Match of the Year rankings, they’re very competently worked with great offense from both guys and fun heeling from Page.
Post-match, the Diamond Doll is rather conflicted about the outcome but embraces The Badd Man. Badd later gives Kimberly the option to decide what she wants to do. Kimberly doesn’t answer right away.
The next match wasn’t on the Yearbook Compilation, but the lineup compelled me to review it anyway. BONUS CONTENT!
Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Cutie Suzuki - Nakano and Hokuto represent AJW, while Ozaki and Suzuki rep JWP. Having an interpromotional joshi match on a WCW PPV is pretty neat, though the presence of Sonny Onoo in the AJW corner tempers the cool factor somewhat. On the plus side, we have Mike Tenay on commentary!
Nakano and Hokuto beat the crud out of Oz to start as Bobby Heenan makes jokes throughout. The heels keeps teasing Ozaki with tags out to Suzuki, then continue abusing poor Oz. Team AJW hit a double-team chokeslam on Ozaki, but Suzuki breaks up the pin. Ozaki continues to take a drubbing in the AJW corner.
Ozaki comes back with a DDT and it’s HOT TAG CUTIE SUZUKI! She hits a dropkick for a close two on Hokuto, then it’s DOUBLE HALF CRABS from JWP!
Suzuki kicks away at Hokuto, then the JWP duo work over Hokuto’s leg. Tenay recounts Hokuto and Nakano teaming together at Collision in Korea and even brings up Hokuto’s romance with Kensuke Sasaki that originated there. Suzuki accidentally dropkicks Ozaki, leading to Bull hitting Cutie with a powerbomb. Nakano misses a moonsault, so Ozaki and Suzuki MAKE IT RAIN top-rope double footstomps! After four of them, Nakano kicks out of the pin, then suplexes both opponents at once. Hokuto misses a splash off the top, but Nakano breaks up a double superplex by tossing Oz and Suzuki off the ropes, allowing Hokuto to hit both with a crossbody.
Nakano and Hokuto attempt simultaneous pop-up powerbombs, but the JWP ladies reverse them into hurricanranas for a close two! The JWP team both hit top-rope clotheslines, and Ozaki hits the Tequila Sunrise (a half-and-half suplex) on Hokuto for two! Hokuto comes back with a HUGE German on Ozaki, then Bull clobbers her with a clothesline. Oz and Suzuki dodge a Nakano double clothesline…but Hokuto flies in with a missile dropkick on both opponents!
Hokuto hits a somersault dive to the floor onto Oz and Suzuki, then the AJW team hits a Doomsday Device on Ozaki (almost spiking her on her head)…but Suzuki breaks up the pin! Nakano hits a BIG guillotine legdrop onto Ozaki for the three!
***3/4 - This was GREAT stuff packed into just under ten minutes. They did an effective job building the heels up as dominant monsters and getting Ozaki and Suzuki across as underdogs. Plus, as with a lot of joshi, they were busting out crazy sequences of moves at an absolutely insane speed. You’ll see these ladies do better on their home turf, but this was a tremendous showcase.
Other stuff that happened:
Big Bubba Rogers pinned “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan in a Taped Fist match after using a chain thrown to him by V.K. Wallstreet.
Kensuke Sasaki retained the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship against Chris Benoit after a Northern Lights Bomb.
Lex Luger quickly submitted Randy Savage with an armbar on Savage’s TOTALLY FINE arm.
Sting defeated Ric Flair via submission with the Scorpion Deathlock.
World War 3 60-Man, 3-Ring Battle Royal for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship - Grab a seat, because here’s all sixty participants:
Scott Armstrong, Steve Armstrong, Arn Anderson, Johnny B. Badd, Marcus Bagwell, Chris Benoit, BIG TRAIN BART, Bunkhouse Buck, Cobra, Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan, Bobby Eaton, Ric Flair, The Giant, Eddy Guerrero, Hulk Hogan, Mr. JL, Chris Kanyon, Brian Knobbs, Kurasawa, Lex Luger, Jumpin’ Joey Maggs, Meng, Hugh Morrus, Max Muscle, Scott Norton, One Man Gang, Paul Orndorff, Diamond Dallas Page, Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, Brian Pillman, Sgt. Craig “Pitbull” Pittman, Lord Steven Regal, Scotty Riggs, Road Warrior Hawk, Big Bubba Rogers, Jerry Sags, Ricky Santana, Randy Savage, Kensuke Sasaki, The Shark, Fidel Sierra, Dick Slater, Mark Starr, Stevie Ray, Sting, Dave Sullivan, The Taskmaster, Super Assassin #1, Super Assassin #2, Booker T, Squire David Taylor, “Hardwork” Bobby Walker, VK Wallstreet, “Pistol” Pez Whatley, Mike Winner (who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry), Alex Wright, James Earl Wright (no relation to Alex), THE YETAY, and The Zodiac
After David Penzer announces everyone, Michael Buffer says stuff leading up to his catchphrase. With the money they had to shell out for Buffer, they should have had HIM read off that long-ass list of names. Imagine an increasingly-annoyed Buffer announcing “THE YETAY”.
I did end up watching the entire eponymous battle royal, but there’s no way in hell I’m recapping the whole thing. They took the shitty part of the Royal Rumble (too many guys in the ring at once) and decided to amplify THAT aspect of it. Like, LOOK AT THIS.
The major stories in the early part are The Giant’s dominance, the Horsemen's vendetta with Sting and Luger, and Luger and Savage going at it. Everything else is just an incomprehensible blob of flailing flesh. In a bizarre decision, they have a referee in each of the rings instead of on the outside where they can confirm eliminations. It's already crowded enough in there!
One highlight early on is Scott Armstrong hitting the floor like a Family Guy character. He gets taken out via stretcher.
I’ll pick it up when the Yearbook compilation does. We’re down to Hulk Hogan, The Giant, Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, One Man Gang, and Eddy Guerrero. Anderson eliminates Guerrero, but the camera doesn’t capture it. The Giant murders Savage with a chokeslam as Sting catapults Arn into Flair, eliminating the Nature Boy! Hogan immediately clotheslines Double A out, then eliminates Sting, Giant, and Luger all at once! The Giant pulls Hogan out under the bottom rope as Savage eliminates OMG (One Man Gang, not the Usher song). The referee misses the fact that Hogan didn’t go over the top rope and declares Randy Savage the winner and new WCW World Heavyweight Champion!
Hogan stops beating the tar out of The Giant for a minute to piss and moan about the ending.
Hogan continues pleading his case while Savage is like “I didn’t see anything”. Hogan congratulates the new champion for now, but asks him to watch the footage of the ending on Nitro.
DUD - While a fascinating trainwreck of an idea on paper, a three-ring battle royal with 60 participants would be ridiculously hard to execute, and WCW definitely wasn’t up to the task. It was impossible to keep track of everything going on for the bulk of the match, and even when the match was down to a reasonable amount of competitors, the cameras STILL managed to miss eliminations. Plus, the screwy ending (Hogan can’t even do a proper job in a BATTLE ROYAL) didn’t help matters. It did get fun for a minute or two here and there, but it’s not worth watching nearly 30 minutes of nothing.
An interesting bit of trivia: One Man Gang was technically considered the runner up here, making him the runner up for the first World War 3 match AND the first televised Royal Rumble from 1988.
The huge gimmick match and the promise of a new WCW champion was apparently not enough to convince fans to purchase the show. World War 3 ended up with about 90,000 total buys and a 0.43 buyrate, good for worst of the year for WCW so far for shows that aren’t Collision in Korea. Starrcade ‘95 actually does worse than this, though, but we’ll get into that later in December.
NOVEMBER 27th
WWF Monday Night RAW
Remember when RAW last week had a killer episode with interesting character development and fresh ideas? Well, The Fed continues riding the cutting edge by… resurrecting The Brother Love Show. Basically, Bruce Prichard, Vince McMahon’s longtime right-hand man and likely knower of where the bodies are buried, plays a heel televangelist character, complete with garish white and red suit, face entirely saturated with red makeup, and a stereotypical Southern preacher accent.
Prichard played the character from 1988-91 and actually served as The Undertaker’s original manager before Paul Bearer came aboard. I’m not entirely sure why we needed a revival of the character in the mid-1990s. According to Meltzer, Prichard was gaining more backstage power, so this is likely a by-product. Personally, I've also always found Brother Love really annoying in a “go away heat” sense.
Nevertheless, Love's guest this week is WWF Champion Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Love refers to “Brother Hitman” as a marked man and does his usual gimmick where he asks a question, then pulls the mic away before the babyface can answer. Love then references his own past with The Undertaker and accuses Bret of being scared of him.
Love brings up the approaching In Your House V title match with The British Bulldog. Bret snatches the mic and says Diesel was CHEAP for attacking him after the Survivor Series match, he’ll address Undertaker when the time is right, and tells Love to keep his mother’s name out of his mouth. Hart then discusses Bulldog and his defeat at Davey Boy’s hands at SummerSlam 1992. Bret is looking for redemption against his brother-in-law at In Your House and ends things with his catchphrases…but BOB BACKLUND comes out and ensnares him in the crossface chicken wing!
Yup, we’re back to re-heating Bob Backlund for a short-lived upper-card push. This was apparently done as a middle finger to The Kliq. You see, when Vince McMahon was hitting the road and going to house shows, The Kliq would meet with him backstage and allegedly go over a list of wrestlers on the roster who the WWF should push and who should be jettisoned. Backlund was on the “boot” list, so Vince, who was starting to have enough of the Kliq’s power trip, did the opposite and gave Bowtie Bob a renewed push. We’ll see more of Bob later in the week.
Brother Love existing aside, this was actually pretty efficient in that they planted the seeds for Bret’s future title feud with Undertaker, addressed his bad blood with Diesel, and set up the redemption arc with Davey Boy and a short-term program with Backlund.
WCW Monday Nitro
Mean Gene brings new WCW World Heavyweight Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage to the aisle for a chat. Savage is ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN and promises to fight everyone.
“Need a little excitement? SNAP INTO THE MACHO MAN!”
Okerlund brings up the controversial finish from last night, and right on cue, Hulk Hogan comes out and asks “BROTHER FRIEND” to watch that beautiful bean footage.
The footage cuts out just before they show the giant crybaby getting pulled out of the ring. Savage is further left in the dark because there’s literally NO OTHER possible way for him to watch the tape at all. The Giant runs in and assaults both guys, chokeslamming Savage on the concrete floor! Sting comes out and gets goozled, but Hogan puts a stop to that with a chair. Hogan elbows the referee down and continues attacking The Giant with the funniest chairshots known to man.
Sting stops Hogan before further gentle bopping can occur.
NOVEMBER 28th
ECW Hardcore TV
Alright, time to open up that mysterious briefcase and unleash some PULP FICTION! Bill Alfonso hides behind Taz, who says everyone has to go through him in order to get some of Fonzie!
Stevie Richards is scared shitless of the prospect of having to face The Pitbulls, The Public Enemy, and Tommy Dreamer alone in Ultimate Jeopardy (ECW’s version of WarGames)! The Pitbulls are ready for a fight! TPE discusses the upcoming Ultimate Jeopardy match! Cactus Jack (wearing a suit with the blazer inside-out) addresses the world as Mick Foley and asks the fans to not encourage hardcore behavior in Tommy Dreamer! Tommy’s just a sweet, sensitive guy!
Francine doesn’t say anything! Fonzie dares anyone to knock the chip off of Taz’s shoulder! TPE talk about possibly facing each other! Foley shows off his damaged ear! HE’S HARDCORE! The Pitbulls show off their scars! Buh Buh Ray Dudley stutters! Big Dick Dudley growls! Cactus Jack can’t wear sunglasses! HE’S HARDCORE!
Buh Buh Ray continues stuttering! Cactus Jack can’t put a pencil behind his ear! HE’S HARDCORE! The Pitbulls show off their scars…again! Taz asks “WHAT ABOUT TAZ?”! Jack flosses watercress out of his teeth with the microphone cord! HE’S HARDCORE!
Beulah hangs with The Dudleys and gets picked up by Buh Buh Ray! Dreamer won’t stop until he gets Raven! Raven says “NEVERMORE” as he is often wont to do! Public Enemy says stuff again. The Eliminators address The Pitbulls, with both guys looking and sounding like they need to dump ass!
Taz escorts a bloody Fonzie to safety! Cactus and Charlie the stuffed raccoon chant “E-C-W”!
The Sandman is politically incorrect and DAMN PROUD OF IT! Fonzie continues to antagonize everyone else in ECW!
I’m not sure why they needed to show the same Pitbulls clip twice, but the Mick Foley stuff was ridiculously entertaining. There’s a reason why four of the screencaps were just his antics.
DECEMBER 2nd
WWF Superstars
In a segment shown only in New York-area markets, Vince McMahon addresses a couple of recent articles in the New York Post from sports columnist Phil Mushnick, a longtime (and often outspoken) critic of the WWF and everything about it. The articles allege witness tampering and obstruction of justice in the steroid trials.
In something that’s become a tradition, Vince makes himself and the company out to be innocent victims. Big Government and Big Media joined forces like Charlotte Linlin and Kaido to pick on the poor, beleaguered entertainment company. The poor, beleaguered entertainment company that covered up murder, sex trafficking, molestation, and sexual assault for decades.
He says that the “Keystone Kops” and the “yellow journalists” have “incestuously joined forces” in an attempt to save face after the prosecution attempt failed.
Throughout this lunacy, Vince proclaims that he is 100% innocent of any steroid distribution or related wrongdoing because he was acquitted by a jury of his peers. Now, I'm not going to go much into the steroid trials here because far better writers than me have tackled that subject before, like David Bixenspan, but the short version is that Vince basically escaped conviction because the government completely fumbled the case like Leon Lett in Super Bowl XXVII.
This whole thing was boilerplate Vince, and The Fed would continue to use these kinds of tactics over the years to divert attention away from the facts about the various scandals that came up.
We cut to Jim Ross, who is in the stands interviewing a campaigning Mr. Bob Backlund.
Backlund takes issue with Ross calling him “Bob” as Good Ol’ JR asks about the attack on Bret Hart on RAW. Bob refuses to answer, so JR ends the interview. Backlund accosts Ross and traps him in the chicken wing! Savio Vega comes out and makes the save.
Thus begins the long tradition of wrestlers attacking Jim Ross during interview segments.
USWA Championship Wrestling
Dapper Dave Brown brings out Jerry “The King” Lawler, who sustained a broken leg during a match with “Bad” Brad Armstrong at the Mid-South Coliseum. The King, garbed in a custom Cleveland Browns jersey and Zubaz, hobbles out carrying a set of crutches and an aircast boot.
The injury (which may have been a rare legit injury for Lawler) occurred after Lawler landed wrong after an Armstrong punch. He puts over the hospital local medical facility and his personal doctor, who told him he doesn’t need to use crutches or wear a cast. Lawler will be out of action for about four weeks and promises to settle the score with the Armstrongs when he returns. Simple and effective promo from Lawler here.
NEXT TIME: Manami Toyota looks to wrest the WWWA championship from Dynamite Kansai, we have another tag match with the AJPW Pillars, we get a critical update on the condition of Shawn Michaels, and more Mr. Bob Backlund.
Smell ya later!