Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part 51 (12/17 - 12/23)

The Hitman and Megumi Kudo bleed for our entertainment, Madusa trashes a belt, Goldust creates controversy, FMW gives us great tag action, and an evil Santa Claus comes and goes.

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?

After the absolute pile of stuff that was last week, we come to a week that, while less overwhelming, is still packed with content. In our penultimate week, we’ll have ample stuff from the WWF, including a look at a late WWF Match of the Year contender, the genesis of a controversial angle, an all-time shitter of a gimmick, and a music video so full of sap that you can drizzle it over pancakes.

Aside from that, we’ll have plenty of action from FMW and some stuff from the usual Saturday suspects. Oh, and one of the most business-altering incidents in wrestling history courtesy of Nitro.

One of the FMW matches is pretty violent, so there may be a graphic image or two. Keep that in mind if you're squeamish about that sort of thing.

Well…

DECEMBER 17th

WWF In Your House: Season’s Beatings

We close out the WWF PPV calendar with the fifth In Your House. This kickstarts the tradition of mediocre-to-terrible WWF PPVs to take place in December.

Stuff that happened that wasn’t the main event:

• In a pre-show dark match, Savio Vega pinned Mr. Bob Backlund.

• Razor Ramon & Marty Jannetty defeated Sycho Sid & The 1-2-3 Kid after Razor pinned Sid off of a second-rope bulldog. Match was a bit of a plodder.

  • During the match, Goldust requested that Todd Pettengill give Razor a letter enclosed in a gold envelope. Later in the evening, Razor opened the letter and was visibly upset by its contents. We’ll get into THAT later.

• Ahmed Johnson pinned “Nature Boy” Buddy Rydell Landel in under a minute with the Pearl River Plunge.

  • Before the match, Jeff Jarrett, making his return after walking out at In Your House 2, was presented with a gold record for selling 500,000 copies of “Ain't I Great?” (seems low). He attacked Ahmed with said gold record after the match.

  • Dean Douglas, Ahmed’s original opponent, bowed out of the match due to a kayfabe back injury. He gave the match to “graduate student” Landel instead. This would be Shane Douglas HA HA’s last appearance on WWF television as he would be back in ECW shortly after.

  • Officials backstage were apparently impressed with Landel doing the quick job without issue, so he was in line for a decent push. Unfortunately, a quadriceps tear resulting from slipping on ice put a stop to that. A real shame, since he seemed to get it together and was coming off a great run in Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

• In an Arkansas Hog Pen match, Hunter Heart-Helmsley defeated Henry Godwinn via a back body drop into the pen.

  • Hillbilly Jim was the guest referee, and ended up managing Henry and cousin Phineas Godwinn shortly after this.

  • Despite some faulty logic (going back to the ring after fighting to the hog pen) and the general buffoonery of everything surrounding it, the match is actually pretty good.

  • Hunter sustained a nasty laceration on his back and ended up taking multiple comedy bumps in mud and pigshit. Say what you will about Paul Levesque, but he was a trooper doing that.

• Owen Hart defeated Diesel via DQ after Big Daddy Cool shoved the referee, who tried to stop him after repeated Jackknife powerbombs.

• Santa Claus beat the crap out of Savio Vega at the behest of Ted DiBiase. I'll get into THAT soon enough.

• Undertaker defeated King Mabel in a Casket match to thankfully blow off that feud and end Mabel’s time in the upper card. The match was an ass sandwich.

• Goldust defeated Duke “The Dumpster” Droese in a post-show dark match.

• In the final dark match of the evening, Barry Horowitz, Hakushi, & The Smoking Gunns defeated Yokozuna, Isaac Yankem, DDS, & The Bodydonnas in an eight-man tag.

  • The Bodydonnas consisted of Skip and Zip, the latter being the former Dr. Tom Prichard, who buzzed and bleached his hair blonde. It was weird.

WWF Championship: Bret “Hitman” Hart (c) vs. The British Bulldog - Davey Boy shows up to the ring wearing the (allegedly) same tights that he wore the night he beat Bret at Summerslam ‘92. Using ring attire for psychological warfare is pretty awesome.

Bulldog shows off his deceptive agility by flipping out of an armbar, but Bret regains the advantage and continues working the arm. Bret outwrestles Davey Boy until Bulldog hits him with a kitchen sink and a hair slam. Bulldog gets him in the tree of Joey Lawrence (WHOA) and stomps away, but ends up inadvertently throwing down referee Earl Hebner. Bulldog continues to dominate, including a falling slam to counter a crucifix, and interference from manager Jim Cornette. Bulldog is a bit chinlock-happy in the early going, but it’s an interesting story beat because Bret used that move quite a bit during their SummerSlam match. Though, in that case, it was to relay information to Bulldog, who had forgotten the entirety of the match layout within minutes of the opening bell.

Bret takes his awesome sternum-first turnbuckle bump for a close near-fall. Davey Boy continues grinding down on Bret until the Hitman comes back with a monkey flip and a headbutt to the lower abdomen. A bulldog ON the Bulldog gets two, as does a SWEET piledriver.

Bret mounts his usual comeback and tries a superplex, but Bulldog blocks and viciously crotches him on the top rope. Davey Boy sends Bret tumbling into the ring steps, and Bret does a rare bladejob for this period. Much like at WrestleMania VIII, Bret apparently got out of trouble for this by claiming to have been busted open hardaway, but you can see Bret in the blading position for a while. It’s not a big wound, but there’s a LOT of blood.

Back in, Bulldog gets his own piledriver for two, then gets his stalling suplex for another near-fall. Bulldog heads upstairs and hits a diving headbutt to Bret’s back for another close near-fall. Bret escapes a bow-and-arrow and nearly applies the Sharpshooter, but Bulldog counters and soon bulldozes Bret out of the ring. Bret slings back in and hits a nice German Suplex for two as we continue to get closeups of Diana Smith. YOSHIHIKO has more emotional range than she does.

They clothesline each other down, but Bret soon backdrops Davey Boy out of the ring. Bret follows with a pescado, then goes for a slingshot splash, but Bulldog catches him and powerslams him on the floor!

Davey Boy exposes the concrete, but Bret crotches him on the railing and lariats him off like Stan Hansen. Bret whips Bulldog into the corner, giving us a crazy flip bump from Davey Boy. Suplerplex gets two, and Bret rolls through a roll-up for another near-fall. Bret boots a charging Davey Boy, then applies La Majistral for three! Bret must have been watching his Ultimo Dragon tapes.

****1/2 - It may have been a bit slow-going in the beginning and didn’t quite have the electric atmosphere of Wembley, but god DAMN that one got amazing after Bret started bleeding. Great callbacks and story parallels here, with Davey Boy dominating the match in a similar way that Bret did in 1992, and Bret getting the win from a flash pin like Davey Boy did. This also had plenty of exciting near-falls and crisp action. A top-flight match from a really bad year for The Fed.

In terms of buys, this show certainly did numbers. Really goddamn terrible numbers, but numbers nonetheless. The event garnered 80,000 purchases, good for fewest buys ever for a standard WWF PPV, post-Wrestling Classic and pre-WWE Network. Even putrid efforts like ECW December to Dismember 2006 couldn’t plumb the depths this one did.

The holiday season certainly didn't help. Families spent most of their finances putting Playstations, POGs, and Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge under Christmas trees, so a lackluster show from an ice-cold product wasn't going to convince people to further stretch their December budgets.

DECEMBER 18th

WWF Monday Night RAW

On our final episode of RAW for ‘95, we get a promo from Goldust. He quotes Romeo is Bleeding and expresses his, ahem, “admiration” for Razor Ramon, following up on the business with the golden envelope from last night.

Goldust says that Razor oozes machismo, and he wants them to “ooze it together”. We’ll get Razor’s response a bit later.

This week on The Brother Love Show, we have Ted DiBiase. They discuss the Santa-related beating sustained by Savio Vega at last night’s pape. Brother Million Dollar Man says that it was not Santa Claus who attacked Savio, but XANTA KLAUS! He’s from the SOUTH Pole, and he TAKES gifts from children! Sounds like a real asshole. Xanta Klaus is the newest member of the Million Dollar Corporation, and 1996 will be the year of the Corporation. Ted even says that 1996 will be the year of the Million Dollar Champion. This basically foreshadows Steve Austin’s WWF debut, which was taped in 1995, but aired in early 1996.

On January 1st, the WWF brings to you the RAW BOWL. Sounds like something you’d pay $24.99 for at a vegan restaurant, but nope, it’s a special football-themed episode of RAW to capitalize on college bowl game mania. “Classy” Freddie Blassie assumes the role of a football coach, getting various WWF wrestlers in football gear hyped up for football-style action.

Blassie works the fellas up into a frenzy until they have themselves a little brawl. A foot-brawl.

Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler discuss the feature match of the RAW Bowl, which was a four-way elimination tag match featuring Razor Ramon & Savio Vega, Owen Hart & Yokozuna, The Smoking Gunns, and The 1-2-3 Kid & Sycho Sid. I remember enjoying it back in the day, but opinion of it has been pretty negative in the years since.

We now talk to Razor Ramon, who is with Dok Hendrix. The letter that Goldust sent to Razor is brought up. Razor says the letter indicated that he was “so hot and so handsome”.

“He’s right!”

Razor explains that he’s into the females. He has no problem with how Goldust wants to live, but he doesn’t want to be involved. Hendrix digs for more details on what was in the letter, but Razor doesn’t want to as it’s a “family show”. Well, it won’t be a family show for much longer.

In what was presented on screen here, this was a refreshingly evolved response from Razor. In real life, though, Scott Hall was apparently upset and uncomfortable with doing the angle, and eventually refused to work with Goldust beyond their Royal Rumble match. The likely plan was for a WrestleMania XII showdown between the two, but Roddy Piper took his place while Hall was co-incidentally suspended and already had one foot out the door.

According to a Kevin Nash shoot interview, Hall wasn’t necessarily coming from a place of homophobia, but he didn’t feel comfortable having to explain that kind of thing to his 5-year-old son, Cody.

To cap off our Monday Night RAW coverage, we give you the classically schmaltzy and overwrought “Tell Me a Lie” music video for Shawn Michaels. We get highlights of Shawn throughout the years.

Mixed with the highlights is footage of Shawn’s recent concussion issues and screaming, crying female fans. Shawn’s collapsing timed to the sad percussion is pure cinema.

The actual song was released on the WWF Anthology CD set and can be found on YouTube. If your vibe is “saccharine ballad that would play over the credits of a Lifetime Christmas movie”, this is your huckleberry.

WCW Monday Nitro

The announcers yammer away at the top of the show until Alundra Blayze comes out carrying the WWF Women’s Championship belt. After a short promo declaring herself to always be Madusa (the name she used for most of her career), she infamously dumps the title belt in a wastebasket, declares WCW to be where the “big girls play”, and leaves to the shock of the announcers.

I mean, after Vince McMahon turfed the entire women’s division, do you really blame her for binning the belt?

Allowing Blayze to still have possession of the title belt despite no longer being a contracted talent is either supreme idiocy, apathy, or arrogance on the part of the WWF. Eric Bischoff, after finding out that she still had the belt, asked Blayze to bring it along and came up with the idea to throw the title in the literal trash on television.

This was purely done for shock value and as another volley towards the WWF, but it didn’t do much of anything for Madusa. WCW tried to build their own women's division around her, but it didn’t really pan out. Sadly, most people likely remember her WCW tenure for her feud with Oklahoma, a writer doing a bad Jim Ross impersonation, over the Cruiserweight title. Madusa was persona non-grata in the WWF for nearly two decades until her Hall of Fame induction in 2015. She drives monster trucks now, which is pretty bad-ass.

At the time, this was quite shocking, but its impact only magnified over the years. This SHOOK Vince. Because of this incident, when it came time for then-WWF Champion Bret Hart to leave for WCW, Vince was not taking any risk of another of his titles showing up on WCW television. Thus begat the Montreal Screwjob and all the shit that spun off from THAT.

Needless to say, the entire wrestling business would be VASTLY different if Madusa left the belt at home.

DECEMBER 19th

ECW Hardcore TV

We start off with Big Dick Dudley growling at Santa Claus, because why the fuck not? That’s a Lifetime Christmas movie I’d actually watch.

That leads into a holiday highlight reel set to Bob Rivers’ cover of “Joy to the World”. We look at various recent goings-on in the Land of Extreme, including 911 chokeslamming jolly old Saint Nick.

After the wrasslin’ footage, Buh Buh Claus stutters when trying to say “Merry Christmas”, so Big Dick whacks him with a crutch. The crutch is done up in candy cane print, which is a stupidly brilliant touch.

We now check in with Steve Austin. He bemoans having been given two world title shots, something never given to him in WCW, but ended up dropping the ball in both matches, eating pins to Mikey Whipwreck and The Sandman. He claims that, though he was DAMN NEAR CRIPPLED after his injury and was having his first match back, Mikey still beat one of the best wrestlers in the world, and THAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE! Maybe he should make that a catchphrase.

Maybe Austin can’t cut it anymore? He teases going the Mick Foley route of angling for his job back in WCW, saying Eric Bischoff should get announcer of the year! He begs WCW to take him back to toil in the midcard…NOT.

Austin’s better than everyone in WCW and ECW! ECW isn’t wrestling; it’s VIOLENT CRAP. Austin is DISGUSTED with himself and the last four years of his life, so he’s taking some time off to get his shit together.

This was a bit rambly at times, but this was another fun promo. You can see and hear the superstar potential in Austin here. This was almost like a beta test for what would eventually become the Stone Cold character. The only thing missing is the bald head and goatee. As brought up above, Austin would be in the WWF very shortly after this and would do somewhat fine for himself.

DECEMBER 21st

FMW Year End Sensation '95 - Tag 10

Megumi Kudo & Aja Kong vs. Combat Toyoda & Bison Kimura - Some real badass women in this one. This is part of Combat Toyoda’s retirement tour, and it’s a reunion of the 1986 class of the All Japan Women’s dojo. After being trained by Jaguar Yokota, Toyoda and Kudo spent most of their careers in FMW, while Kimura and Kong remained chiefly with AJW.

We start off with the big guns, Kong and Toyoda. They collide like angry goats until Kong backdrops Toyoda out, allowing Kudo to hit a suicide dive. Kong teases a somersault plancha, but, after realizing that it would cause the Earth to collapse into itself via the force of sheer awesomeness, doesn’t go through with it. Kimura and Kudo check in, with Kimura dominating the smaller Kudo. Kudo gets worked over by Toyoda until she gets a couple of flash pin attempts and tags in Kong.

Kong and Toyoda leather each other with solid blows. Kimura tries her hand at felling Kong, but that doesn’t work out well for her. Kong whips Kimura and punches her in the throat! Kong dominates until Kimura fights back, then her and Toyoda both take a bite out of crime Kong!

Within moments, Kong and Kudo both chomp on some Bison, but Kimura regains the upper hand and chains together a series of submission holds and catapults (including one that kinda launches Kudo into a Toyoda clothesline). Toyoda comes in and continues the assault on Kudo’s back with an awesome spinning torture rack into a backbreaker.

Kudo escapes and tags Kong back in, where she and Toyoda exchange headbutts like they were in the most pit at a Slayer concert. Kong gets the best of that exchange and piledrives Toyoda for two. Kong crossbodies both opponents at once and lands a splash off the ropes for two. Big elbowdrop misses! Toyoda ducks a uraken, but can’t escape a backdrop driver! Kudo tags back in and gets mauled by Toyoda with a press slam, but eats an errant crossbody from Kimura! Kudo gets a roll-up for two!

Kimura catches a roll-up attempt with a German suplex, but Kudo counters a Kimura powerbomb and lands a hip attack. Kong lariats Kimura down and launches Kudo into a hurricanrana! Kudo hits a tornado DDT for two, but Kimura soon clubs away at Kong. She lands a NASTY side slam on Kong for two, but a diving headbutt meets boots. Kong folds Kimura up with a couple of backdrop drivers, but Kimura bridges out of the pin! Toyoda and Kimura soon hit Kong with a doomsday palmstrike!

Kong kicks out of the pin, but Toyoda (after some struggle), hits a top rope back suplex for another two! Toyoda hits a missile dropkick for another two, but Kudo attacks Toyoda from the top rope and drags Kong back for the tag! Kudo and Toyoda go at it until the latter hits a powerslam for two! Kudo hits an avalanche butterfly suplex for two, then hits a trio of double-underhook powerbombs, but the pin is broken up by Kimura! Toyoda counters a La Silla with a powerbomb, then Kimura lands a fisherman’s Northern Lights suplex for two.

Kimura smashes Kudo with a powerbomb, and Toyoda hits a top rope splash for two. Sitdown powerbomb from Toyoda, but Kong breaks the pin. Kong is disposed of, but Kudo hits both opponents with a DDT! Kudo holds Toyoda in place for a uraken, but Toyoda ducks! Kudo eats the backfist, then Toyoda hits a high angle powerbomb for two. As Kimura and Kong brawl, Kudo hits a top-rope sunset flip powerbomb on Toyoda for the three!

**** - Great tag match here from these four, aside from a bit of meandering and awkwardness here and there. Really fun, meaty exchanges from Toyoda and Kong, and Kudo was excellent as the underdog babyface here. Plus, you can never forget about the MOVEZ.

Hayabusa, Great Sasuke & Koji Nakagawa vs. Super Delfin, Ricky Fuji & TAKA Michinoku - This should be insane, especially having Hayabusa and Sasuke on the same team. Nakagawa and Fuji are FMW stalwarts, having been with the company from its halcyon days until its closure in 2002. I haven’t seen Nakagawa before, but he’s firmly in his “Hitman” era. I remember Fuji from a couple of J-Cups. He had a particularly foul match against Sasuke The Great (Masao Orihara doing a Great Sasuke copycat gimmick) in the 2000 iteration.

Hayabusa is rocking some killer white gear.

Fuji, looking like a less-bloated Painmaker Jericho, and the Hitman start us off with some feeling out and athletic reversals. TAKA and Sasuke square off, with TAKA taking a monster bump over the top, but coming back with a HUGE plancha onto Sasuke! ‘Busa and Delfin go at it, with Delfin doing a Rick Rude-like sell of an atomic drop. Delfin tries to retreat to the back, but Fuji stops him. Sasuke and Fuji do a nimble sequence that ends with some dancing! Delfin and Sasuke now do their thing, with Delfin hitting a spinning quebradora and teasing a dive.

Nakagawa gets beaten down, with Delfin and Fuji trolling him with Sharpshooters. Hayabusa flies into the ring to break up Fuji’s attempt, but Nakagawa ends up in the tree of woe, allowing Delfin to step on his nuts. Sasuke tags in and is immediately beset by TAKA. The heels triple-team Sasuke in Kai En Tai-like fashion, then Hayabusa tags in and gets more of the same. TAKA tries to unmask Hayabusa, but Nakagawa stops it. Sasuke returns to the fray and again gets assaulted. Fuji and Delfin hold him up for diving knees by TAKA! That was brutal.

They then hit an awesome Doomsday Device with a double-clothesline, but Sasuke soon rolls out and it’s absolute bedlam in there! We get a triple pin attempt for two, then it’s on to the dives! Delfin hits a plancha while Fuji hits a suicide dive, then TAKA hits a springboard moonsault! Fuji and Delfin hit stereo rolling crucifixes, then Delfin and TAKA hit simultaneous tornado DDTs. TAKA hits a big springboard axehandle on Hayabusa, but Sasuke ejects TAKA and it’s the babyface team’s turn for dives! Nakagawa hits a slingshot pescado, and Sasuke and Hayabusa hit simultaneous (and GORGEOUS) Asai moonsaults!

Back in, Nakagawa hits a flying shoulderblock for a close two on Delfin, then a German suplex is broken up. Quebrada from Sasuke on TAKA gets two, but TAKA comes back with a belly to belly. A flying knee misses, and Sasuke hits a powerbomb, but the pin is broken up. Hayabusa and Fuji fumble a powerbomb for two, but Hayabusa recovers with a fisherman’s buster (the J-Cup ‘95 Driver) while Sasuke hits a somersault tope onto TAKA. Fuji kicks out, but Hayabusa lands a Phoenix Splash for the three!

****1/4 - This was basically Michinoku Pro with FMW guys in the mix, and it was excellent. This had the athletic early grappling, some amusing comedy, rapid-fire sequences, and well-executed (for the most part) moves. Sasuke and Hayabusa were on point with their high-flying, Delfin was solid as usual, and TAKA is having a sneaky good year in 1995. The bad guys did a splendid job doing their version of Kai En Tai heeling and triple-teaming. I wasn’t moved either way by Nakagawa or Fuji, but they didn’t detract from anything, either.

DECEMBER 22nd

FMW Yamato-Nadeshiko II

No Rope Barbed Wire Match: Megumi Kudo vs. Shark Tsuchiya - Did you have GORY SELF-MUTILATION on your Christmas list? Well, here it is! Shark is the top female heel of the promotion and comes out with her stablemates (Miwa Sato and Crusher Maedomari). Kudo comes out with some of her trainees and Combat Toyoda.

After a few minutes of teases and interference from Tsuchiya's camp, Kudo ends up tangled in the wire. Tsuchiya grinds a barbed wire kendo stick in her face. Rude!

Kudo evades attacks from Shark and Sato, but ends up getting shoved back onto the wire. Kudo is an absolute mess as a table gets tossed into the ring. Tsuchiya tries a powerbomb, but Kudo’s feet knock the table over, and Shark just drops her. Two more attempts (one with assistance from Sato) finally causes the table to at least bend. Kudo finally breaks the table by poweslamming Shark through it, but Tsuchiya doesn't sell it and goes at Kudo with a Mr. Pogo-like sickle.

Kudo fights off more sickle torture and creates space with some kicks. She blocks a sickle attack with a piece of broken table (that was a pretty cool visual) and smacks Shark with it. Tsuchiya finally goes into the wire! Kudo assaults Tsuchiya with the kendo stick and even has one of the rookies take a few swings! Kudo chokes her with the kendo stick and gets a fisherman’s suplex for two, but a hip attack misses, sending Kudo into the wire. Tsuchiya hits a powerbomb for two, then she clobbers Kudo with some loose barbed wire. Shark tries a powerbomb onto a barbed-wire bat, but Kudo escapes and DDTs her on it!

Kudo hits a German, but Maedomari breaks it up. Kudo fights both off and hits a near-Tiger Driver ‘91…for two! Double-underhook powerbomb on a chair gets two! Kudo runs Tsuchiya into the wire and plants her with the KUDO DRIVER (Vertebreaker) for three!

*** - I'm of two worlds about this one. Kudo was excellent here as a “final girl”: getting hacked up and tortured, but overcoming the monster and her underlings at the end. On the other hand, the match was clumsy in places, especially with the table, and I wasn't exactly impressed by Tsuchiya. She just seemed clunky and could have at least sold a bit more.

Let's just say that it's some fun carnage if you're into that sort of thing, but it won't exactly convert anyone who isn't.

DECEMBER 23rd

WWF Superstars

Xanta Klaus vs. Scott Taylor - Did you REALLY think I was gonna NOT take a look at this Christmas-flavored crap? They didn’t even bring Xanta out during the Brother Love segment on Monday, so let’s actually get a good look at him in a little bit of Yuletide BONUS CONTENT.

This also the very last match I’ll be reviewing from the WWF for 1995. What a way to end the year.

Of course, Xanta is the former Boo Bradley, who we saw earlier this year in Smoky Mountain. He’d achieve his greatest fame as Balls Mahoney in ECW (the original incarnation and the ill-fated WWE revival). Scott Taylor is of course the future Scott 2 Hotty.

Xanta is decked out in a BLACK Santa suit with red trim, and he’s rocking a short, black beard. Because he's EVIL.

Vince McMahon on commentary, with no hint of irony: “He’s not even from the North Pole!”. Xanta clobbers away at Taylor while the inset promo from Ted DiBiase again teases a new member of the Million Dollar Corporation. Klaus hits a nice side suplex and locks in the camel clutch for the submission. After the match, Klaus throws up the “X”. Who does he think he is, CM Punk?

DUD - Total squash as expected, with no real interesting offense except for the suplex.

This was the one and only appearance of Mirror Universe Saint Nicholas because even The Fed at their most inept could see that this was doomed to fail, especially once the holidays are over. How the hell would an evil Santa Claus get heat in August?

You’d think that someone with John Rechner’s size and potential would have been repackaged into something else, and that was allegedly the original plan. The WWF intended on having Rechner drop some weight and come back with a new gimmick in about a year. JJ Dillon, who was working for the WWF front office at the time, reached out to Rechner and let him know that they effectively wanted to pay him to stay home and train, but Rechner declined the offer.

Jim Cornette, who was Rechner’s boss in Smoky Mountain, encouraged him to reconsider the proposal. However, the offer was soon rescinded due to a story leaking to the dirtsheets about Rechner being drunk and belligerent at a TV taping. Rechner found out that the source of those rumors was writer Vince Russo.

Rechner called Russo’s office to voice his displeasure and was put on hold for several minutes. After someone picked up the phone, Rechner asked if he was speaking with “Vince”, and the man on the other end answered in the affirmative. Rechner then tore a strip off of who he thought was Russo, even threatening physical violence.

However, it turned out that it was NOT Vince Russo on the other line, but Vince McMahon. Whoopsie-doodles. Suffice it to say, we wouldn’t be seeing Rechner on WWF television until ECW-mania ran wild in the mid-2000s.

Oddly enough, this did end up revitalizing Rechner’s career when he was in ECW. Raven caught wind of the incident and remarked that he had “balls”. That eventually led to the “Balls Mahoney” name.

USWA Championship Wrestling

We get a recap of the Jeff Jarrett vs. Brian Christopher rivalry over the years.

We see Too Sexy costing Double J a match against Shawn Michaels, Christopher winning the Southern Heavyweight title from Jarrett after interference from Steve Doll, and Christopher smashing a picture frame containing an inspirational poem over Jeff's head. Jarrett regains the Southern Heavyweight title via use of a chain (take a drink). In another match, Christopher kicks out of a chain shot (take a drink).

This was a pretty good primer for people to understand the history between those two guys. It’s been said before, but these Memphis guys really know how to throw a worked punch.

WCW Saturday Night

We close out another week with a Ric Flair promo ahead of Starrcade.

Flair goes over his Starrcade history, beating Harley Race in 1983 and Vader in 1993. Flair hypes his upcoming match with Randy Savage on Nitro and closes out with a WOOOOO!

WCW is definitely doing what they can to right the Flair ship after a lot of godawful booking in 1995. Another effective, classic-style promo from the Nature Boy.

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NEXT TIME: It’s the very last week of 1995! I’ll take a look at WCW Starrcade ‘95, we’ll also have some AAA tag action on Christmas night, plenty of ECW, and other stuff!

Smell ya later!