The 1996 project - PART 3!
This week has been a wild one – saw the excellent Bossk and Maybeshewill bring the post rock and post metal goodness at Gorilla in Manchester, nice intimate venue across the road from the O2 Ritz (which funnily enough I’ll be at on the 21st May for Riverside/Klone!) and now cover the week of 6-11th Jan 1996.
ECW House Party 96 part 2 – aired 23rd January 1996
We begin with the debut of a future ECW legend… Rob Van Dam taking on Axl Rotten whose response to RVD doing his kick pose is to do the Crane pose from Karate Kid. Joey also references how RVD has been spending time in Japan (including a very early stint in All Japan!) Essentially this is a showcase/test match for RVD and the Philly crowd with a fair few of the moveset that we would come to know – just minus the chairs.
The crowd actually rooting for Axl throughout the match is very funny knowing how the future of ECW would go and hardcore wrestling in general… but slowly a small section starts let’s go Rob chants.
RVD picks up a pretty decisive win with a split-legged moonsault and while it would a few more months for his star to really begin to shine we see the start of someone essential to ECW’s history right here.
Cue the Closer into Thunderkiss 65 intro… NOPE!
We get Snap’s The Power as we show highlights of Holiday Hell to last week ending with the Beulah/Stevie/Dreamer/Raven madness!
It’s quite funny now how they were building the ‘pregnancy’ as THE BIGGEST REVELATION IN WRESTLING HISTORY at the time which when you consider the payoff… not even close even by 1996’s standards although when compared to a ‘pregnancy’ angle two years later in WWF the reveal here is tame.
After that LONG recap we get Hack Myers the ‘Shah’ of ECW (whose gimmick boiled down to fans going Shah when he hit a move and Shit when he got hit by a move.) vs Taz and you can probably guess how this goes – Hack tries to outwrestle Taz, gets a few hits in but ultimately cue the suplexes and Tazmission for the submission.
Taz then tries to start cutting a promo but the crowd keeps chanting for Sabu – he then proclaims that this is just the beginning of the end of every man who gets in our Path of Rage and then tells the crowd to fuck off.
Succinct and to the point at least(!)
We then get highlights of Stevie vs Sabu with the main question being could Stevie get another win like he did at the start of 1995? Hahahaha… no but in all fairness it took a few tries to get Stevie down with the Arabian Facebuster chair assisted leg drop.
Notable btw during the upcoming shows bumper is the debut of a young upstart named Chris Jericho, someone to never count out I believe.
Sandman vs Konnan follows and this match even in highlight form is OK – a true example of what Konnan could do (at least for another year…) not that the Philly crowd particularly care (mostly because Konnan was going to WCW) until the blood, cane shots and tables come out with a duelling cane spot getting the crowd back on side for a little bit.
It ends with Konnan being counted down for 10 due to bloodloss and being offered another shot… which never happened.
Pulp Fiction montage ends the show - Dreamer proclaiming he’ll destroy Raven rather than have him be godfather to his child, Beulah making a dick size joke at Raven under a ‘higher purpose’ euphemism, Raven lamenting, Stevie and Blue Meanie in a hotel room – Meanie making a mess, Pitbulls vowing revenge, JT Smith falling off a chair, Dreamer wanting to save Whipwreck from the evil Titan Towers (which… given what we know now was 1.not entirely accurate when Heyman’s getting money from him and 2. Accurate in that Vince is a garbage human being on MANY LEVELS.) and Shane shows up to be Dreamer’s partner for an upcoming tag match.
This episode – slightly better but of course you don’t get to see the Public Enemy’s farewell unless you BUY THE TAPE.
So courtesy of the yearbook – HERE IT IS!
(Come on now… you think I’d leave you hangin’?)
As per with Public Enemy and The Gangsters it’s a beautiful, bloody brawl (one of ECW’s strengths.) but before we get to that New Jack cuts a little shoot on Harlem Heat which gave me a little chuckle.
Like I said it’s another beautiful, bloody chapter in their rivalry (although not hearing Natural Born Killaz play all the way throughout is slightly weird for me) with Rocco Rock hitting the Drive By senton for the win on the way out.
That would be the last PE ECW appearance for three years and needless to say sadly for them it’s all downhill from here.
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Remember how in part 2 I mentioned the giant plot hole with Beulah suddenly being pregnant with Dreamer’s kid and I wasn’t sure if it ever got explained? It NEVER gets explained (and no – the actual payoff being a game to fuck with both Dreamer and Raven doesn’t count because that never gets explained either!)
Konnan is honest enough to admit to Dave Scherer that the move to WCW is money, a push, the US title and a possible tag program with Hogan (Never happens).
Drama as someone (never revealed who) got annoyed that Sabu’s still doing indies for Dennis Coraluzzo but they can’t – even though these dates are Sabu finishing commitments booked prior to returning!
Talks apparently went well too in doing a future PPV – at least for now. Along with talks with Fox. (The latter being this week’s segment of Paul E Bullshit…)
Aside from the previously mentioned Jericho, the Head Hunters should start in late January while Juventud Guerrera is to make his debut in February.
Time now to take our first trip to the USWA!
USWA Championship Wrestling – air date 6/1/96
I have to say it’s a pleasure to see Lance Russell and Dave Brown commentating on my screen – sure to many of my era JR and King were THE duo but discovering Lance and Dave over the years has been something special. (Much love to Kris Zellner of Between The Sheets for helping preserve some classic Memphis.)
Now when you consider how USWA structures their show to ECW it’s like night and day as we start with the new tag champions Tommy ‘Wildfire’ Rich and Doug Gilbert taking on two enhancement talents – one with the very unfortunate name of Ken Raper and getting the quick win.
No twenty minute recaps here – straight to the wrestling. Better. We also get some hints at future challengers in the Rock and Roll Express plus a mention of the Smoking Gunns as there’s a round robin tournament for a shot at their WWF tag titles.
We then get a quick recap of Gilbert and Rich’s feud with PG-13 (JD Ice and Wolfie D), cheap shots and studio brawls – wonderful!
This segues into an interview with Rich and Gilbert which becomes a wild brawl with PG-13 and Smothers and Armstrong.
We then see Koko B.Ware’s turn on Brian Christopher and then see Koko proclaim he’s going to end the job he started on Brian (mostly through clenched teeth for some reason) and how he should watch what happens to the Yellowjacket. Squash time!
Koko then gives the brainbuster to some poor guy trying to stop the beatdown.
We then get hype for Lawler vs Tex Slazenger – USWA Heavyweight title and the Southern title on the line then an excellent promo by Scott Bowden.
We end with a fun 6 man main event – PG-13 and Brian Christopher vs Rich/Gilbert and Dark Death. Sadly the ending is lost due to technical issues at the studio but PG-13/Christopher get the win by pinning Dark Death. (Dark Death being Reggie B Fine doing a one and done masked gimmick.)
Bar the technical issues – a nice hour of wrestling. Nothing dragged and was to the point – something even 1 hour shows NOW fail to do mostly.
WCW Saturday Night – airdate 6/1/96
So considering the WCW weekend shows are for the most part squashes – what we shall be doing is noting anything that’s worth mentioning.
In this episode’s case there’s a tag match between Arn/Brian vs American Males, a Giant/Flair hyping up their tag match vs Hogan/Savage at Clash of The Champions later in the month and that’s your lot to be honest so only seek it out if you REALLY want to.
BONUS! IWAMS- Mad Man Pondo vs Ian Rotten 6/1/96
A RARE match as it’s one of the few 1996 matches that made tape (but we do get a couple of events later in 1996 courtesy of IWTV) and tbh it’s Pondo vs Ian in a deathmatch so… just watch.
WCW Monday Nitro – Air date 8/1/96
Benoit vs Alex Wright kicks the night off with a fun technical hard hitting match and Brian Pillman acting like the Loose Cannon that would get him talked about for a lot of this year, meanwhile Bischoff keeps throwing shots at TitanIC Sports for raising PPV prices rather than giving a shit about the match.
A Dragon suplex by Benoit gets the pinfall and we quickly move on to more goodness in Eddie Guerrero vs Lord Steven Regal (accompanied for the first time I believe by Squire Dave Taylor) – always nice to hear Heenan big up Regal’s credentials even if at one point he’s bringing up the random Mike Dikta Up Close from Saturday Night.
WWF Shots 2 and 3 – Royal Fumble while plugging Clash of The Champions then Mongo bringing up the PPV prices again.
Such a treat seeing these two wrestle and Eddie getting the surprise win with a backslide was the right way to go.
Mean Gene does his first interview of the night with Sting and Lex Luger but before we hear from them – Gene does WWF shot number 4 by saying the New Generation are near to collecting their social security aka pension which… given Hogan and Savage are there along with HIMSELF makes no sense whatsoever.
Sting and Lex are here as Sting’s mighty curious why Lex stopped him from getting the potential win at the triangle match during Starrcade, Lex counters by saying he was injured and so he reached out to Sting for help but he’ll prove it again what the kind of friend he is at the Clash in a tag match. Sting mulls it over and decides they’d make a good team after all and will take on the Blue Bloods on the 23rd January.
Sting then wrestles DDP in a match that’s OK but nowhere as close as what the future will bring for both men over the next year with Sting getting the win naturally.
Arn/Flair vs Hogan/Savage is the typical early 1996 main event – and the more this goes on the more boos Hogan is starting to get as he of course does the schtick and pins Arn. Thankfully we get a nice brawl and the Giant taking out both Hogan and Savage with a chokeslam to end it (although you can tell Hogan’s not quite ready for his – at least it wasn’t Judgement Day 2002 level bad.)
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Hogan fought a lawsuit the week prior accusing a business associate of extortion along with her lawyer - Kate Kennedy alleges that criminal sexual conduct was conducted by Hogan while she was his merchandise manager the week of Nitro’s debut in Minneapolis. Hogan asked for 50k in damages caused by the ‘emotional distress’ of the extortion attempt. Kennedy and her lawyer stated in local press how they were hoping to have settled this in a private matter without coverage HOWEVER Hogan sending out a press release about his lawsuit on the 5th March obviously made it more public.
Miss Kennedy would file a counter suit that we shall cover next week and fair warning for descriptions of SA.
WCW have also decided that wrestlers must leave their belts with the company after each taping because get this – they don’t what Medusa did with the WWF Women’s title to happen to them and given WCW has had many issues with remembering who has a contract at times… karma’s funny.
Nasty Boys aren’t happy with their push so are threatening to jump to the WWF. Narrator’s voice: They do not leave.
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WWF RAW – airdate 8/1/96
Honestly there’s three things notable on this show – we have a press conference with HBK that’s to hype up his spot in the Royal Rumble and him being defiant by not retiring, the debut of Steve Austin as the Ringmaster (It begins…) and the Billionaire Ted skits return and now begin to piss people off – other than that squashes from a nearly month old taping and them showing the main of last month’s PPV.
So this means we’ll talk about the fallout of the Ted skit here - one that decided to take a shot at WCW’s steroids policy.
Vince then online challenges Turner to make a stronger policy – probably to avoid any civil action for the skit – by using the excuse that it was satire. Even though at the very least until 2005 the steroid policy in WWF was… lukewarm at best especially given the first attempt at bringing Warrior back was done JUST THE WEEK PRIOR.
WCW’s clapback for these was the previously mentioned shots and planned to show Vader vs Inoki plus Diesel, Razor and Undertaker jobbing in WCW. Neither happened – although the latter would later on.
FMW @ Chiba Park Gym – 10/1/96
We get the final two matches of this card courtesy of the Yearbook – Aja Kong vs Combat Toyoda and WING Alliance (Hido, Matsunaga (of 2005 STOP THE MATSUNAGA infamy!) and Kanemura) vs Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Koji Nakagawa in a Spider Net No Ropes Barbed Wire Double Hell Death Match!
What can be said about these two matches is that you’re getting at least two main parts of the FMW experience – in one hand you have Aja and Toyoda doing what they do best – beating the hell out of each other and Combat trying to counter the Uraken but ultimately falling prey to it after Aja hits her with a German suplex of her own – and on the other hand you have the glorious madness of a No Rope Barbed Wire Double Hell Spider Net deal.
Needless to say after, ladders, tables, barbed wire, and more Hayabusa gets overcome by W*I*NG Alliance and then apologises for letting FMW down – he would then not return until May due to injuries.