Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part 50.5 (12/14 - 12/16)
A box full of broken dreams and shattered promises.
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?
At long last, we bring this packed week to a close. We won’t have a metric ton in terms of content here, but we’ll still have some footage from a Stu Hart tribute show featuring a preview of the upcoming In Your House main event, and a rare showing from Otto Wanz’s CWA in Germany. We’ll then end the week with Christmas-flavored shenanigans from Superstars, some Memphis, and The Mothership.
Well…
DECEMBER 15th
The Stu Hart 50th Anniversary Show: Showdown at the Corral
Drawing 4,700 strong to the Stampede Corral in Calgary, *dramatic pause* Alberta, Canada, Showdown at the Corral was a supercard organized by the Hart Family in tribute of patriarch Stu.
This show was notable for featuring an extremely rare WWF vs. WCW match, not something really seen during the thick of the Monday Night Wars. The event would feature several alumni from Stampede Wrestling and competitors from the WWF and WCW.
There were a couple of no-shows, notably from Abdullah the Butcher and Dynamite Kid. According to Dave Meltzer, the event organizers had paid for Dynamite’s plane ticket and set everything up for him well ahead of time, but he completely blew them off. He apparently didn’t own a phone in his England home, so the organizers tried phoning the steel mill where he was employed as a night watchman to see what the fuck was going on, but he wouldn’t even take the call there. It wasn’t until the day of the show that a co-worker picked up the phone and told them that Kid wasn’t showing up. Something tells me that this Tom Billington guy might be a bit of a dick.
The show was taped and broadcast on local television as a one-hour special, but the full show, captured on fan cam, is out there.
Stuff that happened during the show:
The Cuban Assassin & Jerry Morrow defeated King Lau & Mike Anthony via pinfall after a Morrow top-rope splash onto Anthony.
Makhan Singh (the former Bastion Booger/Norman the Lunatic) pinned The Gothic Knight.
Rhonda Singh (the ex-Bertha Faye) pinned KC Houston after a sitdown splash to counter a sunset flip.
Dan Kroffat (the original non-Phil Lafon version) wrestled Jesse Helton to a no-contest.
Dr. Drago Zhivago (amazing name) came down to pester Kroffat, so Kroffat challenged him to a match. Kroffat put Zhivago in a sleeperhold and removed his pants, because wrestling.
Chris Benoit (WCW) defeated Rad Radford (WWF) via superplex in the aforementioned “WCW vs. WWF” match.
Benoit was apparently supposed to wrestle 1-2-3 Kid here, but that changed for whatever reason.
The 1-2-3 Kid defeated Keith Hart via an inside cradle after countering a Hart figure four attempt.
Razor Ramon successfully defended the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Owen Hart with a small package.
This match featured interference from the 1-2-3 Kid and a false finish where Owen pinned Razor after blasting him with a microphone. A second referee advised of what happened and Razor won shortly after a restart.
Bad Company (Bruce Hart & Brian Pillman, not Pat Tanaka & Paul Diamond or the British rock supergroup) defeated Terry Funk & Dory Funk, Jr. (with Makhan Singh) via DQ after Funk hit Bruce with a steel chair. This one featured a lot of brawling around the arena.
A hell of a lot of Stampede alumni were also inducted into the Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame. Among the honorees were:
Andre the Giant
Antonino Rocca
Billy Robinson
Brian Pillman
Chris Benoit (eek)
Edouard Carpentier
The Fabulous Moolah (also eek)
Terry & Dory Funk, Jr.
Gorgeous George
Harley Race
Hiroshi Hase
Killer Kowalski
Jim Neidhart
Larry Cameron
Lou Thesz
Pat O'Connor
Stan Stasiak
Johnny Valentine
The British Bulldogs
The Hart family (Bret, Bruce, Keith and Owen)
A rather impressive line-up of people who plied their trade in Stampede.
We start our actual look with a ceremony to honor the man himself. Ol’ Stu gets a huge reaction from the fans as expected. Stu starts his speech by thanking the fans, but Ed Whalen cuts him off. Kind of dickish there, Edward. Stu is presented with a bust while pictures of him through the years are shown on-screen.
WWF Championship: Bret “Hitman” Hart (c) vs. British Bulldog - A couple of very notable Stampede alumni close out this show two nights before they were set to square off for the title at In Your House: Seasons Beatings. Per Dave Meltzer, it was supposed to be Shawn Michaels challenging Bret, but the concussion ended up changing things. Fear not, Divers; Canada will still get its Shawn/Bret match. A very infamous one in 1997.
Both guys come out to the ring on the backs of motorcycles, which is normally pretty beast, but it's CALGARY! Those fellas should be on horseback.
We work the mat to start until Bret takes some powerful-ass Irish whips into the corner. Ed Whalen on commentary says this is a ‘ring-a-ding-dong dandy’. But is it the ‘shucky-ducky quack quack’ moment of the night? Delayed vertical suplex from Bulldog, but he takes a fortnight getting up to the top rope, so Bret intercepts him with a superplex.
Bret makes his usual comeback, including a piledriver for two. Bret goes for the second-rope elbow, but Bulldog gets the boots up. Double-clothesline puts both guys down, but they do an up-and-over that results in Bulldog mule-kicking Bret in the wiener. Bret blocks the powerslam by grabbing some ropes, then pushes back into a pin attempt for two.
Bret catches a leapfrog for a Sharpshooter attempt, but Bulldog goes to the eyes to counter. Davey Boy gets a roll-up, but Bret rolls through and gets one of his own for three!
**3/4 - Really not much substance to this one as both guys were in full house show mode. They had a big PPV main event two days later, so I can’t entirely fault them for mostly playing the hits and going home. That said, even a mailed-in Bret vs. Davey Boy match is still pretty good.
CWA Internationaler Catch Cup 1995, Night 35
The Catch Wrestling Association, headed by Otto Wanz, was based in Austria and Germany, and lasted from 1973 until 1999. In addition to Mexico and Japan, this area of Europe was a destination for a lot of younger wrestlers (and some veterans) looking to flesh out their game. They employ traditional European rules, so the matches are divided into three-minute rounds. The unmitigated gall of these folks to rip off Paul Alperstein’s AWF!
Dave Finlay vs. 2 Cold Scorpio - Like pretty much all CWA footage I’ve watched before, this is brought to us by fan cam. Dave Finlay is, of course, the Belfast Bruiser/Fit Finlay of WCW and WWE fame. He’s also the father of David, current Bullet Club kingpin, and Brogan, who is currently in NXT under the unfortunate name of “Uriah Connors”. I’ll be intrigued with how well he meshes with Scorp, who breakdances during his entrance.
I never thought I’d hear Boney M. used as entrance music by someone as rugged as Finlay (even if it IS called “Belfast”), but I’ve also seen Greg “The Hammer” Valentine come out to Roxette’s “The Look” at the Tokyo Dome, so nothing should really surprise me.
ROUND ONE: Some feeling out to start, with Finlay getting the early advantage, including a cheap shot during a corner break. We pick things up a bit with a drop-down sequence that ends with a nice Scorpio armdrag powerslam. Scorpio then escapes from a wristlock, but Finlay again regains the lead with shady tactics. Finlay gets a cravate, but Scorpio uses his legs to escape and dropkicks Finlay out of the ring as the round ends. He then teases a plancha, but Finlay moves out of the way.
ROUND TWO: Finlay uses a referee distraction to clobber Scorpio and ram his head into the turnbuckle…but Scorpio’s head is just TOO HARD. Scorpio then gives Finlay a taste of his own turnbuckle-y medicine, which probably doesn’t taste good. I imagine it’s like Buckley’s cough syrup, for which my fellow Canadians can attest to its terrible taste. Turn-Buckley’s?
After a bit, Finlay goes to the throat and runs Scorpio’s face into the mat, but Scorpio ousts him with a back body drop…but Finlay dodges a pescado! Scorpio makes it back in, but is obviously favoring the leg. Finlay goes right to work on it, but Scorpio gets an enzuigiri out of nowhere for a brief respite. However, Finlay goes back on the attack and applies a half-crab. They struggle over that until the round expires.
ROUND THREE: Scorpio gets some flash pins right out of the gate, then hits a uranage for some two-counts. Superkick stuns Finlay, but a second one is caught with a slam, then Finlay applies a cross-legged Boston crab for the submission!
***1/4 - I was digging this one quite a bit as they were telling a rock-solid story here, with Scorp keeping Finlay at bay with his aerial maneuvers until a missed attempt led to his downfall. Scorpio is a blast to watch while Finlay carried the action well. It just ended too abruptly. It was a good match, but felt like the first half of an excellent one.
DECEMBER 16th
WWF Superstars
As it is the holiday season, we get an advert of various WWF wrestlers dressed as the fat bearded guy in the red suit. Razor Ramon, Ahmed Johnson, Yokozuna, and Hakushi all don the guise of Annual Gift Man.
They’re all at a police line-up, where a detective asks small child Billy (the same kid from the “BRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT” vignette) to identify which one is the bad Santa. It turns out to be Harvey Wippleman! Razor is APPALLED that Big Bad Harv told Billy that cigarettes were cool, all wrestlers were WIMPS, and that there is no such thing as Santa!
The Santas all beat the shit out of Harvey with their sacks. Pause.
This was a cute little Christmas segment, though the announcer saying “We know who’s naughty and nice” on behalf of The Fed is rich. I can’t imagine too many people in THAT locker room making any kind of “Nice” list.
Vince McMahon now joins us from the living room of The British Bulldog and Diana Smith to discuss tomorrow’s WWF Championship match with Bret Hart. Diana says that they can get an early Christmas gift as Davey Boy rocks a SummerSlam ‘92 t-shirt.
Diana, ever the shrewd analyst, breaks down the implications of tomorrow’s big match.
“If Davey can beat Bret at In Your House for the WWF title, he’d be the new World Wrestling Federation champion.”
We get clips of their Wembley match, where Davey Boy won the IC title from Bret despite being FOOKED on crack. Diana says that, unlike SummerSlam, she’s 100% pulling for Davey this go-round…hold on, I’m getting something from the Fox 5 News crawl.
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR THE METROPOLITAN AREA WITH SNOW MIXED WITH RAIN CAUSING ICY ROAD CONDITIONS LATER THIS EVENING
Be careful out there, guys.
Anyhoo, Davey Boy has a nice big Christmas gift for Bret. What does it contain? A box full of broken dreams and shattered promises! Awesome. Bulldog claims that Bret has never beat him. LIES! I just saw it happen in Calgary!
Diana was so awful here that this segment actually became amazing, and Bulldog got in a good line, too.
USWA Championship Wrestling
We’re walkin’ in Memphis this week with “Bullet” Bob Armstrong, who is on the telephone with Lance Russell.
Bob is NOT happy with the recent court rulings in favor of the USWA, so he fired all his lawyers and is gonna get on the horn with F. Lee Bailey and Johnny Cochrane. He threatens Randy Hales, saying he’ll “choke his britches full of Scandanavian snake feces and beat his brains out”. HOLY SHIT.
Bob is upset about being booked in a lumberjack strap match with Jeff Jarrett. Bullet Bob keeps ranting and raving, then asks Lance to speak to Hales to have some of the rules in the match changed, and Lance takes umbrage to that. He tells Bob to STOP CRYIN’ and hangs up!
This was GREAT stuff. Unhinged, entitled Bob Armstrong is awesome, and I enjoyed Lance not putting up with his shit.
We’re now joined by Scott Bowden (haven’t seen HIM for a while) brandishing some crutches, which he claims are Jerry Lawler’s. He makes fun of The King for his recent broken leg and tries to goad him out. He wants Lawler to admit that Brad Armstrong snapped his leg.
Lawler comes out in an absolutely incredible sweater and rips on Bowden’s nerdiness and his propensity for saying “Oh, baby” a lot.
Bowden taunts Lawler some more, so Lawler tells him that nobody wants to hear from him. Lawler turns to face the crowd, and Bowden whacks his leg with the crutch. Bowden scampers away, so Lawler threatens to knock all his teeth out.
Bowden’s promo skills were really quite terrible here. The only highlight is Lawler’s sweater. He was feeling his David Ruprecht fantasy.
WCW Saturday Night
On The Mothership this week, we get a video package on…sigh…Sonny Onoo.
He’s trying to buy his way into WCW to show the superiority of Japanese wrestlers. He breaks down the various WCW vs. NJPW matches set to take place at Starrcade while playing up the super-stereotypical evil Japanese tropes.
The idea of WCW vs. NJPW is a really interesting idea, as if somebody is opening up a prohibited portal of some sort. A taboo gateway? I wouldn’t have based the biggest PPV of the WCW calendar around the concept, though. Plus, this Sonny Onoo character is death.
We cap things off with “Mean” Gene Okerlund, who is interviewing Ric Flair. Ric is oddly clad in a leather jacket, not something I saw from him all that often.
Gene brings up the Triangle match with Lex Luger and Sting at Starrcade. Flair runs down his “two decades of excellence” and being the “Sixty-Minute Man”. Ric doesn’t care about Luger and Sting’s relationship as they’ll have to worry about HIM, then unleashes a “Woo!” to take us home. Usual energetic promo from Flair, but nothing you haven’t heard before.
NEXT TIME: We’re back on the regular “one article covering a week” set-up. We’ll take a look at In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings! Plus, a few matches from FMW, one of the cheesiest music videos known to man, and more!
Smell you later!