Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part Five (1/29 - 2/4)
We usher in February with promos, vignettes, angles, and some action from ECW Double Tables!
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 mammoth Part Four, things will be MUCH more brisk this week. We have a week full of interviews and vignettes this week, but we'll still have ECW Double Tables at the end to give us some of that sweet in-ring action. Only one full match from Double Tables is featured on the original Goodhelmet comp, so I'll throw in a bonus review featuring a rather infamous match from that very show. This will be our first week without any Japanese contributions, and we don’t hit Mexico until next week, so expect this to be a very ‘MURICA-centric week at The Dive.
Well, PITTER PATTER.
JANUARY 30th
WWF Monday Night RAW - We start the week off with the currently suspended Bam Bam Bigelow, joining us from home. IN A SUIT.
Vince McMahon grills him about the HUMILIATING loss to the 1-2-3 Kid at the Rumble PPV and the fans making fun of him. Bammer tries to keep his cool, acknowledging that the Kid got the best of him that night. Vince keeps twisting the knife, then brings up Lawrence Taylor. Bam Bam feels that he and Taylor are athletic peers, but Taylor disrespected him after laughing at him. The jerk!
Vince is making the act of pushing Taylor to the floor sound like Bigelow dug up LT's grandmother and drank Pabst Blue Ribbon out of her skull. A touch melodramatic there. Bigelow has had ENOUGH of Vince’s shit-stirring at this point and offers NO APOLOGY for his actions and challenges Lawrence Taylor to a match. ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, LT! Good stuff from Bigelow here as he tried to play it cool in the beginning but was overcome with anger by the end. Even though it’s leading to a tacky celebrity match, it is interesting to see The Fed try to present something that appears shoot-ish.
Next up is the King's Court, with special guest, MISTER Bob Backlund.
Jerry asks him to confirm the scuttlebutt going around that he will no longer release the crossface chicken wing until his opponent screams “I QUIT!”. Mr. Robert confirms this, clarifying that he won't let go until they scream “I quit, Mr. Bob Backlund!”. NO ONE IS EXEMPT from the chicken wing, though Lawler tries to say otherwise, which irritates Mr. Backlund. Bob claims that NO ONE escapes the chicken wing, including “yours truly”. That’s…not what you think it means, and even the announcers are like “oh, he’s gonna put the chicken wing on himself lol”. That idiomatic misadventure might actually be a clever bit of foreshadowing as to how his WrestleMania match ends, but it could have just been Bob saying Bob things. Maybe he ate a marijuana at some point before coming out.
Backlund locks in the chicken wing on Lawler, who immediately capitulates. Backlund storms off, prompting Lawler to try to save face by claiming that HE ended the interview due to Bob’s lack of professionalism. Lawler runs off as Backlund stands tall.
Backlund was really in his element as the unhinged old man with a lethal submission hold, but the shelf life was nearing its end at this point. As well, this segment planted the seeds for one of Bret Hart’s worst PPV matches.
We join the WWF Tag Team Championship rematch between The Smoking Gunns (c) and The 1-2-3 Kid & Bob Holly in progress. Bob Holly is tagged in and hits the dropkick for two. Kid is tagged in as they team up on Bart.
Hardcore and Mr. Ass have a spirited slugfest in the Gunn's corner before Bob Holly assumes the face in peril role for a bit. The future New Midnight Express collide in mid-air. HOT TAG KID, with a lot of high-pitched shrieking in the crowd. Kid is a HOUSE AFIRE, kicking both Gunns. However, Kid goes up for a cannonball, which misses. Kid starts to convulse on the ground as the match is called off in favour of the Gunns. EMTs come out and help the Kid to the back.
Worry not! This was actually a work as the Kid didn’t miss any time and was seen walking around under his own power after the show. This was a really weird finish to what was looking like a half-decent match beforehand (from what was shown). Not sure what the point of this was as it didn’t really lead to anything between the teams. I don’t think Holly and Kid even teamed up again after this, so why not just skip this awkward ending and just put the Gunns over?
JANUARY 31st
ECW Hardcore TV - We start things off with a gritty reboot of “Billy Madison”:
Actually, no. We join Raven in an empty classroom as he reminisces about his shitty childhood and how Tommy Dreamer is the cause of all his life’s ills. Raven again threatens Dreamer as the camera pans to a chalkboard with “I hate Dreamer” written over and over ala Bart Simpson.
We cut to a bloody Cactus Jack cutting a promo on The Sandman. Cactus talks about the pride he used to feel in The Sandman, believing his past self to be an influence. Cactus had gone SOFT, trading in chaos for the desire to win and be admired, but Sandman has awoken a SLEEPING GIANT! CACTUS JACK DOESN'T CARE ANYMORE! Cactus gets on his knees and BEGS Sander for a TEXAS DEATH MATCH! Read on to find out how much THAT stip came back to bite him.
Cactus promises to leave wrestling and become a full-time father and husband if he can't beat Sandman in HIS match. BANG BANG! Cactus had an absolutely legendary run of promos in ECW in 1995, and this is a great example. If I weren't in Canada and in the year 2022, I would have bought a ticket to see that match solely on the strength of Foley's promo.
FEBRUARY 4th
WWF Superstars - Our syndicated Saturday show sees an edition of the Heartbreak Hotel with Shawn Michaels. Michaels gloats about winning the Royal Rumble, then talks about being in the market for a new bodyguard. We’ll see how THAT one pays off soon enough. Michaels then introduces his guest… “BIG DADDY COOL” DIESEL…but it was a RUSE!
Shawn conducts an “interview” with a Diesel standee. Shawn claims that Diesel's run as champion is fizzling, while Vince says it's “skyrocketing”. All the historical data favors Shawn, I'm afraid. Dad jokes are made as this segment dies a death. Shawn's generally a decent promo, but this was pretty lame.
USWA Championship Wrestling - We see some familiar faces on our weekly stopover in Memphis. Doug Gilbert & Tommy Rich join Dave Brown for a chat and JESUS CHRIST what is with those horizontal stripes that Gilbert is wearing?
Seriously, that’s just hideous. Anyways, threats are launched at PG-13, who beat them multiple times recently in non-title matches. Gilbert is SICK of wrestling PG-13 (I don’t blame him; they wrestled A LOT). If PG-13 can beat the champs this week, for the FOURTH time in a row, they'll finally get a damn title match. And you thought WWE was bad for constantly running the same match into the ground.
Smoky Mountain Wrestling - We join Les Thatcher, who is with The Gangstas. New Jack runs down those whose asses were kicked by the Gangstas, then launches threats towards Bob Armstrong and Tracy Smothers.
We cut to Les Thatcher with Jim Cornette this time. He introduces camcorder footage of The Gangstas and The Heavenly Bodies continuing their SUPER SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER brawl backstage. Lots of weapons and lots of cussin’. Jimmy Del Ray picks up a shopping cart and hits Mustafa over the head with it!
The fight spills out onto the street until The Gangstas run away. That was actually a really good little brawl!
We cut back to Corndog and The Bodies with Les. Cornette makes some REALLY racist jokes here, implying that New Jack would call him racist for saying them. He then posits that if he said The Gangstas didn't deserve the tag titles, New Jack would say that is also racist. What the FUCK, man?
Cornette plugs two upcoming matches: A Smoky Mountain Street Fight for Brawl in The Hall, and a six-man tag with the Bodies and Cornette teaming up against the Gangstas and D'Lo Brown for Sunday Bloody Sunday 2. Well, that whole thing was a big ol’ pile of YIKES, but considering some of the other vile shit Cornette’s said over the years, I’m not entirely surprised. It almost felt like an excuse for him to fire off horribly offensive jokes.
Ending things off for SMW this week, we have new SMW Heavyweight Champion Jerry “The King” Lawler, fresh off winning the belt in an absolute dog of a match with Dirty White Boy at SUPER SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. This promo is essentially Lawler tooting his own horn for a few minutes while Les grills him about how he won the belt.
We jump to Les with “Nature Boy” Buddy Landel. Les explains that we'll get a return match between Jerry Lawler and Dirty White Boy on February 25th (lucky us), and the winner faces Landel in the 26th. Landel is NOT happy that DWB is getting the first shot and promises to make everybody's life HELL until he becomes Smoky Mountain champion.
ECW Double Tables - And we end the week with the first major ECW show of the year. Hell, these will be our first full ECW matches this year.
“The Crippler” Chris Benoit vs. “The Snowman” Al Snow - Alright, let’s get this out of the way: fuck Chris Benoit. Fuck Chris Benoit forever. OK, now let's get into the match. Al Snow is rocking short red trunks here and doesn’t really have much of a personality, certainly something that would change over the years. He was certainly making a name for himself in smaller promotions at the time through impressive ring work, though. Joey Styles puts over Snow training UFC fighter Dan Severn.
We start with some really nifty technical wrestling from both guys and hit the pinfall reversal sequence early. Snow rocks Benoit with a superkick. Benoit comes back with loud, NASTY chops and clotheslines Snow off the apron and follows with a baseball slide…then Snow IMMEDIATELY nails Benoit with a beautiful springboard dropkick! HUGE pop from the crowd for that one.
Snow ousts Benoit with some kicks, then we stall for a bit as Benoit gathers himself. Snow WHIFFS on a missile dropkick and Benoit gets a German for two. Al Snow looks legitimately fucked up here, likely from that missed dropkick.
Benoit destroys Snow with a clothesline as Snow looks completely out of it. Snow takes a killer bump in the corner and a back suplex gets two. Snow is getting brief flurries of offense and flash pins, if only by instinct. Flying headbutt gets a close two. Wildbomb and a German suplex nets a couple of nearfalls. Snow escapes a dragon suplex and hits the Snowplex (a wheelbarrow German suplex)! Snow hits his OWN release German!
Snow hits another superkick for two! Bridging T-bone gets another two! Benoit gets a dragon suplex out of nowhere for three, then powerbombs Snow after the bell, because reasons. Snow is then stretchered out while Styles claims that “not even Chris Benoit knows how dangerous he is”. Yeah.
***3/4 - In some ways, this was a hell of a match. This was the kind of stuff you didn’t see much of in America around this time. Both guys suplexing the shit out of each other, high-flying, striking, and technical wrestling, all done with copious amounts of intensity. Al’s injury derailed it somewhat, though, as there was often dead space and stalling between moves. It also felt really one-sided, but it lines up with how ECW was building up the “Crippler” aspect of Benoit’s character.
The following match is not on the original Goodhelmet Yearbook compilation. However, the match has gained some notoriety over the years, and the week was pretty light, so I’ll throw it in here as BONUS CONTENT.
Texas Death Match: Cactus Jack vs. The Sandman - Yup, this is the infamous match where Sandman gets his bell SERIOUSLY rung and the match goes completely off the rails as a result. For those unfamiliar, a Texas Death Match is basically a Last Man Standing match, but the ten count takes place after a competitor is first pinned for a three count.
Cactus attacks Sandman from behind as he makes his entrance to kick things off, then attacks him with a chair and a crutch.
More NASTY chairshots to the head ensue, and a legdrop nets the first three-count, but Sandman gets up. Another sick chair to the head and another legdrop gets another three, but Sandman answers the count at 6. Outside the ring, Foley grabs a frying pan from a fan and scrambles Sandy's brains with it. From what I remember, Foley thought the fan brought a cheap dollar-store pan, but, nope, cast fucking iron. This results in a legitimate concussion for Sandman, and he's just wrestling on instinct at this point.
Sandman comes back by throwing Cactus headfirst into the guardrail. SLINGSHOT PUMPKICK, but Sandman is too loopy to follow up effectively. Cactus misses a legdrop on the outside, then misses a running kick, buggering up his leg. Sandman gets a suplex in the ring and some knees in between bouts of staggering around the ring and almost falling on his ass. Hak works the knee, and even Woman gets a cane shot on the leg. At least they’re trying for something resembling psychology with Cactus’ leg, but that’s not gonna last. Cactus gets a DDT on the chair, and Sandman kicks out at 2! Not sure that was supposed to happen. Sandman gets a piledriver on Mick that legitimately fucks up his neck for several months. Not sure taking a piledriver from someone in THAT condition was a prudent decision, but whatever.
Sandman releases the pin at 2 and continues his assault. DDT to Cactus on the chair gets a three, but Sandman breaks the count! Cactus grabs the Singapore cane and brains Sandman with it a few times. Some more chairshots to Sandman, then CACTUS ELBOW with the chair! Sandman kicks out at two! Foley throws a chair at Sandy's head from the apron! Man, I’m glad that with improved concussion awareness and protocols, we probably won’t see shit get THIS bad nowadays.
Jack drops the elbow for a three…AND SANDMAN GETS UP! Mick is visibly flummoxed at this point. DDT on the floor gets another three…AND SANDMAN IS AGAIN RISEN! ANOTHER DDT on the concrete, another three and, much like Frampton, SANDMAN COMES ALIVE. Yet another DDT gets yet another three, and Sandman FINALLY takes the hint and stays down for the ten count! Cactus wins!
3/4* - Ho-lee-shit. This had a reputation for being an absolute trainwreck, and that was very much the case. Not sure what the plan was, but it all went to pot once Sandman's gray matter got turned into tapioca. The Texas Death Match rules didn’t exactly help things because you couldn't just easily get a quick three count to get out of there. Foley tried to keep it together, but there’s only so much you can do when somebody is THAT far gone.
We join the main event, Sabu & The Tasmaniac vs. Public Enemy (c) in the titular Double Tables match for the ECW Tag Team Championship, at the finish. Johnny Grunge and Tasmaniac go through a table simultaneously, leaving it down to Sabu and Flyboy Rocco Rock.
Flyboy positions Sabu on a table and goes to the second rope…then comes down and DOES THE CABBAGE PATCH! Devastating! Rock does eventually put Sabu through the table with the Drive-By (a flipping senton, and dude got some AIR on that)… but the referee is distracted by a powder-blinded Taz! I mean, COME ON. Couldn't you at least HEAR the table break? You're right there, dude! Rocco rings the bell while Grunge chokes out Paul E. Dangerously! Sabu legdrops Rock through a table at ringside! The referee sees THAT and rings the bell! We have new tag champs!
This match had tape traders in a stranglehold back in the day, but it was a bit of a chaotic mess with a silly finish. The fans popped HUGE when Sabu and Taz were announced as the champions, though. The brawl continues after the match, and Sabu seems poised to put Flyboy through another table.
However, Chris Benoit comes in and powerbombs Sabu onto Rocco Rock through the table to end the night.
Well, that was certainly a week that happened. We had fake injuries, real injuries, and some real goddamned YIKES from the Cornette promo. However, it wasn’t all bad. As unlikely as I am to wholeheartedly recommend watching a Chris Benoit match nowadays, it is interesting to see ECW start to showcase more state-of-the-art wrestling on their shows instead of just the blood and guts, and we’ll continue to see more of this over the coming year. Combine this with compelling promo work from Cactus Jack and the Raven/Dreamer saga, and you can see why this era of ECW is so fondly remembered.
NEXT TIME: Another relatively breezy week, but we get our first lucha match of the review series as AAA brings us a multi-generation tag team contest. The WWF continues to heat up their top programs for WrestleMania, and we’ll get the usual fare from USWA, SMW, and WCW.
See you again soon!