Weekly Watchlist 015 - September 22 2024

Wrestling fans! Boy, does it feel good to be back!

What a week I had, an absolutely incredible time away. What I'd give to go back, see the fog roll in over the lake in the wee hours of the morning. God, that was so nice. And, for the first time since starting this blog and maybe even for the first time this year, I went a full week without watching any wrestling. No matches, barely saw any clips, couldn't tell you a promo I listened to, it was great. I mean I obviously listened to the DEADLOCK pod and The Lapsed Fan when I had some time to myself, I can't give up the essentials. Now I'm back in town and trying to do some catch up on stuff I missed and get back into the swing of reviewing matches again. 

 

Here's what I watched in hopes of finding something to review;

I gave up on trying to watch the DPW/Gatoh Move co-promotion shows after the first two matches under delivered so spectacularly and moved onto the DPW/Elevation Pro show that was next in the list. Was nice to see another American indie that's doing really well, even if that joker Jason Kincaid was in the main event match. I just can't stand the guy, I'm sorry to say. He kept popping up on my socials a few years back when I was getting really into catch/shoot style wrestling and seeing him do 25 flips, twists, and spins just to turn a hammerlock into a pinfall drove me insane. His match was good but purely because I enjoy Lucky Ali as much as I do, otherwise I'd have tuned it out. 

TNA has been on a real tear lately and I'm so happy they are doing as well as they are right now. I hate to be so cynical and say its just because they started calling themselves TNA again but I'll be dammed if that hasn't kinda righted the ship this year. Every match was good to great, with Speedball making me enjoy a Zachary Wentz match! What a feat! I'm really glad I decided to keep TNA in my radar this year, as someone who grew up watching TNA in 2007 and 2008 and has a lot of nostalgia for what it used to be, it feels good knowing TNA is doing good. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind - WWF In Your House: Mind Games -  09/22/1996

The hot jock vs. the insane loner kid. High school all over again. WWE

At the time of writing this review, this match just turned 28 years old! Happy birthday Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind at In Your House: Mind Games! My knees hurt for no reason too! This is one of those matches that popped up on my Twitter feed the other day and was a match I, 1. totally forgot ever happened and 2. didn't realize it was a good as people rate it! I mean really, should it be a surprise to anyone that these 2 put on a great match? There's a reason people still ask "are you a Bret guy or a Shawn guy?" and it's not just because of Montreal, it's because they were 2 of the absolute best wrestlers the WWF had during the mid to late 90's. Maybe not as over as Austin or Rock while they shared the locker room, but when the bell rang you were hard pressed to find 2 guys that performed better in that ring. Foley too, for his part, is always criminally underrated despite people giving him his flowers all the time. When you've got a guy that's willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to help get a guy and a match over, you've got someone special. I mean lets think about some careers he helped make, shall we? Undertaker and the legend of the Hell in a Cell was born that fateful night in June of 1998, Orton outgrew the "son of a legend" moniker when him and Mick went to war in Backlash 2004. Cactus Jack went through hell and back making Triple H feel like a killer and made him a main event player for the rest of his career, and nobody expected Edge and Foley to have a match that insane at Mania 22. In summary, Foley is as good as people say and by god, maybe just a bit better. 

The star of this match has Michaels a bit nervous to really go toe to toe with Mankind. The threat of losing his WWF Championship to this freak is very real, and its written all over his face. Mankind is able to get the advantage very quickly, taking Michaels down and eventually sending him up and over to the outside, booting him into the railing as he takes a seat on the apron. With Michaels nursing his ribs mere minutes into this match, Mankind starts to tear up the ringside padding but it costs him. Standing with the mats completely in front of him, Michaels dropkicks Mankind through the padding and sends him down to the concrete floow, trapped beneath the blue pads. Michaels stomps and jumps on Mankind, still trapped under the mats, until he climbs the turnbuckle as Mankind starts to crawl out from his makeshift sleeping bag, only to catch a diving crossbody from Michaels. 

Padding or not, a kick to the face landing on concrete has gotta suck. WWE

 With Mankind on the backfoot already, Michaels tries to put him away early with a bodyslam to setup for his patented top rope elbow drop. Standing up, he gestures to say "he's done!" and moves to the corner, tuning up the band for Sweet Chin Music. Mankind rises to his feet to see Michaels making the move in for the superkick, but he charges at the ropes and dives outside, landing on the floor and rocking back and forth, barely avoiding disaster. 

While Mankind is on the outside getting a little pep talk from Paul Bearer, his manager at the time, they show a picture-in-picture of a camera angle I've never seen before. Its from the second turnbuckle as Michaels takes off for his elbow drop so you get to see his left boot as he takes off and lands on Mankind. Really cool angle, I know AEW has the turnbuckle cam they go to sometimes but it rarely looks good when they are right on top of it and usually trying to just hold on so they fuck with the cam, but this shot looked really cool. 

Back in the ring, things turn into a brawl quickly. Mankind shoots Michaels off into the corner so he climbs up to the second rope and waits to hit him with another crossbody, but Mankind just walks away. Michaels jumps down and storms over to Mankind in what looks like legitimate anger and startws cracking him with right hands so Mankind responds by taking Michaels down to the mat but ends up on the bottom, getting pelted by punches over and over. 

With Michaels the one being sent outside now, Mankind grabs the, you guessed it, spanish announce table and sets it up perpendicular to the ring and Michaels flies over top it and crashes into Mankind! Michaels pulls Mankind around the ring and plays basketball with his head on the casket that Mankind had setup at ringside for his entrance. Stunned now, Michaels grabs Mankind and suplex's him into the ring steps with a sickening crash! Christ man, maybe this is why your knees hurt!

 

Not the kind of stuff you want your physiotherapist to see. WWE

Michaels seizes on the weakness now, chop blocking Mankind when he gets back in the ring, slamming the knee into the casket and whipping him down by the leg into a figure four! It should be noted that both of these guys get progressively more glittery as the match goes on, as Goldust wrestled the Undertaker before this match and left a pile of gold glitter all over the ring and ringside mats. Its honestly absurd how glittery Michaels looks by the end of this match. 

In a moment that I thought was going to be a real "for the sickos" moment, Mankind takes a small stake of some kind and starts jabbing it into his injured leg. Jim Ross on commentary makes the remark that he's doing it to restore some feeling but I don't know how wailing on a part you probably already feel to an extreme degree is going to help your situation at all. But what do I know, I'm not bat shit insane. 

Back in the ring, its heavy shots back and forth as Michaels gets Mankind up and over with a nasty back suplex. Mankind reverses a corner whip and sends Michaels into the buckle hard, Flair flipping up (but not over) and getting his foot caught under the top buckle and laying upside down in the corner. Mankind drops a pair of running elbows on the dazed Michaels and follows up with a leg drop (brother why?) when Michaels rolls back to centre. 

Sending Michaels back outside, we see a grim flash into his future as he narrowly falls to the side of the ringside casket as Mankind rolls out in staggering pursuit. He charges at Michaels, leaning against the stops but meets steel as he rolls out of the way. Following up on the other side, Michaels catches him with a drop toe hold that sends him face first into the corner of the steps! Fuck!

 

How's that steel taste, Mr. Kind? WWE

And, to tie it all together with a nice bow, both men find themselves sparring on the apron when Mankind decides to charge again, running face first into the steel ring post as Michaels darts inside the ring to safety. God damn Mick, you're insane!

From one side of the ring to the other, Mankind hits the ropes and does his signature "I only need one ear guys, trust me" hanging-in-the-ropes spot. Michaels comes by to try and pry the ropes open but Mankind doesn't care, instead he locks the mandible claw on Michaels! This man is being hung by his throat and still only cares about trying to subdue Michaels, what a fucking nutcase. Love this guy. 

The action starts to turn into chaos at ringside  as Michaels follows Mankind out but gets the claw locked on again! Desperate, he yanks Mankind face first into the barricade, knocking poor Hugo Savinovich over. Those spanish announcers just can't catch a break, man. With Bearer distracting Hebner, Michaels starts to clatter Mankind with a chair. Blocking a punch with the seat, kneecapping Mankind with one shot, and smashing the claw hand on the apron with another. 

Another weakness has been created, and Michaels is going to wear it down until its black and blue. He smashes the hand against the ring, bends and snaps at the fingers and ripping off the glove that covers the claw fingers. Mankind is writing against the ropes in pain, and Michaels punctuates the punishment by stomping on his hand. The camera angle here looks like he's legitimately dropping his entire weight on his fingers with the heel of his boot, it so nasty. 

After a brawl on the outside once again, Mankind tries a double-underhook DDT for the pinfall but gets only a 2. He tries again with a piledriver, but still only gets 2! Outraged, he rolls back outside and tosses 2 chairs in the ring, rolling back in to open the casket to try and lock Michaels inside it. But Michaels finds his third (maybe fourth?) wind and drops Mankind with another elbow off the top. He climbs back up for another try but Mankind crotches the champ on the top and climbs up to meet him, but pays for it when Michaels turns the back suplex attempt into a crossbody through the announce table! The carnage!

Look out below! WWE

Back inside, there's a chair set up neatly in front of the corner, conveniently the same one Mankind decided to ascend with a chair in his hand. Michaels charges and uses the chair to springboard himself up, dropkicking the chair into the mush of the manic brawler and pulling him to the centre for a pin, but gives it up as the crowd starts to stir. Suddenly, Vader is in the ring! His interference has the match get thrown out as he gets punches and sent out over the ropes with a weak flying clothesline by Michaels. 

Soon, Sid comes out to brawl with the mastodon, Mankind locks the mandible claw on Michaels again, and Undertaker is back out to chase Mankind out of the arena. 

Its a real shame this match had to have a fucked finish like that, but don't let that take away from just how good this match was! The brawling was exceptional, the action was quick and never let off the gas long enough for you to get bored. Mick knows how to get the best out of his opponents and that was on full display here tonight. Its not like the WWF Champion of all people, especially not at this point in his career, needed help with credibility but man, Michaels looked like such an ass beater here. Going toe to toe with someone that he, himself, said he had no idea how he was going to deal with him. A fantastic match. Could even be called a hidden gem, considering In Your House shows kinda fly under the radar sometimes when people talk about big shows from this time period. 

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Super Vader - UWF-I Pro Wrestling World Tournament: Finals - 08/18/1994

Respect. Sportsmanship. That's what its all a bout. UWF-I

Originally, I had a different UWF-I match lined up for this weeks review, Super Vader's clash in the semi-finals with Kiyoshi Tamura, a match I saw people chatting about on twitter this week. While that match was great, it clocked in at just over 7 minutes, with Tamura getting almost all the offence and Vader winning via TKO with a vicious powerbomb. While I'm not opposed to doing reviews of shorter matches, that one didn't feel like it had enough going on to warrant a proper review. But this match, my god, this match deserves it. 

This is also gonna be a really unique review for the watchlist, but not the first of its kind however. I reviewed a shoot-style match all the way back in week 2 when Moxley and Barnett clashed at the Bloodsport show in Japan earlier this year. I can't say that shoot style matches are something I'm an expert in, but I'm absolutely a fan of them. Especially when it's two studs like Vader and Takada, the latter of the pair I had never heard of until this match and every comment and review I see says he's one of the very best wrestlers turned MMA stars ever. He's on my radar now for sure. 

The match starts with Vader and Takada shaking hands in the centre of the ring, ultimate respect between these two and it's a thread that runs through this entire match. That handshake sets the tone for every single thing that comes after it. Its so good.

For the first 2 minutes of the match, Takada and Vader are just trying to feel each other out, watch their movements, look for openings, judge distance. Neither man is too eager to start striking or grappling. A lock up from Tamura pushes Vader into the ropes and gets broken up by the referee. It's not until Vader is able to back Tamura into the corner that the strikes start popping off. Vader's signature forearms rock his opponent, with a knee lifter to the gut and a series of clubbing forearms knock Takada down and under the bottom rope. 

The matches in UWF-I are won by submission, KO, or TKO, any time someone is down on the mat, the referee and ring announcer start counting up to 10. If you can't get to your feet by the count of 10, it's over. Takada is only down for 3 and gets right back up, squaring up to Vader only to get slammed right back down. It's easy for people to be considered the underdog against a monster like Vader. 400 pounds of raw aggression and power, it's like trying to fight a grizzly bear. Takada keeps getting sent down until he's able to turn the tide on Vader and try to get him in an armbar early, but Vader scrambles and gets to the ropes. That's another thing that should be noted, rope breaks count as well.

This is what you call "going strike for strike." UWF-I

 

When Vader gets back up, Takada fires at his legs with kicks, the same leg that Tamura beat on for 5 of the 7 minutes in his semi-finals match I mentioned earlier. Takada knows the leg can't be 100%, even if the match was 2 months ago (ok so maybe his leg is fine, a 2 month nagging injury is probably something you should get looked at big guy) and decides to try and cut Vader down. He keeps laying the kicks in and has Vader stunned long enough that he's able to drive him up and down with a beautiful back suplex. 

Both men are down now and start trying to tie each other up. Takada trying for the armbar again while Vader is trying to get in position for a heel hook, eventually transitioning around to a scarf hold that gets broken up by the referee. He backs off and lets Takada get to his feet, again meeting him in the centre for a handshake. Respect. That's what this is about. 2 athletes fighting to prove that one of them is the absolute best. 

The pleasantries are just about over and it's time these two start going to work. Back on the canvas, its a slow and methodical pace as they try to tie each other up. Neither man is moving too quickly here, this isn't one of those indie-riffic grappling sequences where they fly between hammerlocks, heel hooks, crossfaces and armbars to show they know how to grapple, this is two guys (as close as you can get to) legitimately trying to catch the other guy in the right hold that wins the match. 

When they find themselves on their feet, Vader is able to easily get the better of Takada, knocking him off his feet several times and forcing the 10 count each time. But on the canvas, they're a bit more evenly matched. Vader's size and strength are clearly an advantage, but Takada has skill and speed on his size, the knowledge of how to get into and out of holds. A nice example is when Takada and Vader are ties up on their hands and knees, Vader has his upper body on the upper body of Takada and is fishing his arm under and through to try and lock in a guillotine choke, and the camera does a really nice job getting this shot. It looks to be locked in but Takada knows its coming and buries his chin in his chest, protecting his neck at all costs. Vader is quick to give up on that hold and go for something else, but it shows the technique both of these guys bring to the match. 

You best protect ya neck! UWF-I

It's a grappling exchange for the next few minutes and for the sake of not mentioning every move in the match, I want to talk briefly about Vader, as I think this, coupled with the previous match on todays watchlist, is the perfect match to talk about the big man. Vader gets talked about as one of the greatest super heavyweights not just because he could do a moonsault or move like someone half his weight. He's considered the best, in my opinion, because of matches like this one. He can square up to someone who had legitimate MMA training and hold his own, because he's so big and strong. He's a terrifying force to watch. But only in Japan or WCW. WWF? God, what a fucking mistake. Think about this, this match happens in the summer of 1994, a brutal war of attrition. 2 years later? He's getting bitched out by Shawn fucking Michaels of all people, getting his run completely killed because Michaels didn't like working with him. Was he too stiff in the ring? 100%! Joining the WWF was the biggest mistake of his entire career. Hard stop. He was never given a chance to showcase his skills like WCW or Japan let him. 

Anyways, Vader breaks up the ground game with a solid palm strike straight up and into the face of Takada, knocking him down as the referee scolds Vader, thinking he just DQ'd himself by punching Takada in the face. They're back on their feet again but things are not looking good for Takada. He's able to land solid and hard shots that stun Vader, but he's sent back down time and time again with blisteringly hard forearms. On one occasion, Takada barely gets up at 7 only to get bowled back over with a huge lariat from Vader, who raises his hands in early victory.

The crowd is electric for the final few minutes of this match, counting along with the referee and exploding for every strike and big takedown they are able to get. This means something to them, dammit!

The biggest pop is easily when Vader muscles Takada down, and then back up into a disgusting powerbomb, the same move he put Tamura away with. Takada barely gets up, but is immediately on the defensive, trying to swat away the heavy strikes as Vader swarms him. The referee is almost trying to get Takada to slow down, to give himself a chance to breathe, but every time he's knocked down, he's right back up and moving in on Vader. He refuses to die, and the crowd is with him. Chants of "TA-KA-DA" fill the Buddokan. But it proves to be too much, Takada uses to ropes to help himself up but collapses, with the referee calling that match at 19 minutes, 24 seconds. 

Vader wins by KO.

I love everything about this match. Its an incredible blend of shoot style physicality and technique with the right kind of wrestling storytelling throughout. Vader, as always, the insurmountable monster. Takada, the technically sound underdog. But that thread of respect is carried through right until the end. There's a parade of trophies and rewards for the winner, including a tiny World Championship, a gigantic cheque, plaques, and guys in suits to congratulate Vader. His son even makes an appearance, celebrating with pops. 

Takada is being helped out of the ring after the gruelling war and finds himself on the apron while the celebration is going on, and he catches Vader's eye. He drops the giant cheque and walks over to his former opponent, shakes his hand, and pulls him in for a hug. It's enough to make a grown man cry. He holds Takada's hand high, asking that he be given his flowers too. Takada is humble, accepting the nod from Vader and takes his leave, letting the winner own the spotlight. 

Respect. UWF-I

What a fun week of matches that was! I got to spend some time with the "good old days" of the WWF and dip my toes into the world of shoot fighting again and remember that this shit, does in fact, fuck. Got me excited for whats to come next week. Already got a few matches lined up I want to watch!

In general blog news, I updated the website quite a bit! Gave the blog a real major facelift and tweaked it a bit to make it a bit more user friendly and feel like a proper blog. Do you like it? Think I could do better? Hell, maybe you hate it? Let me know! cliffmorganwstl@gmail.com. Contact for is also on the sidebar of the blog at the bottom. 

Until next week, keep your heads above water. 

Cliff Morgan