Let Him Piss - ECW CyberSlam 1996

Grapple City Rewind heads back to the gritty ECW Arena in February 1996 for CyberSlam 96, Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink break down the chaotic compilation-style event featuring Taz squashes, a completely unhinged Brian Pillman segment, dancing babyface Bubba Ray Dudley, triple dog collar madness, and the only true wrestling clinic of the night Too Cold Scorpio vs Sabu, we debate whether ECW’s wild run-in heavy style still holds up, question Meltzer’s dud-heavy ratings, revisit Cactus Jack vs Shane Douglas in a brutal chair shot spectacle, compare modern crowd energy after attending AEW Dynamite live, and discuss The Smashing Machine and how MMA crossover stories shaped the aura of workers like Taz during the 90s

This episode brought to you by Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by  Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00:00.13
Aaron
All right. Just checking my volume. Seems good. Okay. Hey everyone. This is Aaron Fink from grapple city rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow, leave us a review on whatever platform you listen to or cut a promo on us by calling six, two, six, six, five, seven slam.

00:00:21.45
Bradley Palermo
hey la la la Hello and welcome!

00:00:37.82
Bradley Palermo
It's Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the iconic pay-per-views and television specials that shaped professional wrestling history. Today, we are going back to the 90s, the mid-90s, the gritty, underground mid-90s ECW at the ECW Arena, February 1996. And we're going to watch ECW Cyber Slam.

00:01:32.47
Bradley Palermo
era But before we get into Cyber Slam 96, I'm Bradley Palermo here, as always, with Aaron Fink. Aaron, you and I, we we went to see some AEW live the other day out there in Ontario at Dynamite taping.

00:01:48.37
Aaron
We did.

00:01:48.94
Bradley Palermo
Did you have some fun? did you think of the show overall? I know we were sitting near each other, but um by the end, you know, we kind of kind of went our own ways before we got to talk about it.

00:01:59.08
Aaron
Yeah, I did have fun. we were We were sitting in the same row. We didn't buy our seats together, so we we were...

00:02:05.80
Bradley Palermo
Somebody traded though with me, so...

00:02:07.36
Aaron
That's true. We did get someone to trade with us eventually. No, I did have fun. It was um a little bit of a smaller venue than I thought it was going to be, but I guess that makes sense given how in the last year or maybe two, AEW has...

00:02:25.11
Aaron
decided to run smaller auditoriums than they were previously, which I think is honestly good because it was loud. We had fun. the matches were good. Even the ones that I wasn't super excited about on paper ended up being enjoyable.

00:02:40.95
Aaron
um So I would say overall I had a great time and i feel like even without seeing you know, the AEW champion MJF and, and any, and only a few of the main event players.

00:02:55.29
Aaron
We saw, ah Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland. And I think that's kind of it for like the big time guys or whatever.

00:03:01.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:03:09.53
Bradley Palermo
That was good.

00:03:15.36
Aaron
loud and excited. And when I went home and I watched it it, it translated. We were loud like the whole time. And it was even to the point where I listened to Busted Open on Thursday morning last week.

00:03:21.97
Bradley Palermo
Oh, cool.

00:03:27.22
Aaron
And sometimes Dave LaGreca likes to shit on Dynamite, but he hasn't been shitting on it recently, the last like month or two.

00:03:27.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:03:33.99
Aaron
And he was like, dude, that crowd was amazing. Like, that's the best crowd I've heard in a while on Dynamite. So think we did our jobs.

00:03:40.60
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's not that's cool to hear. i i did feel like it was a rowdy crowd. Probably better in Ontario than in l LA proper. um Because for some reason here in l LA, our crowds just don't get hyped as much. But I didn't watch. Usually when I go, i don't usually watch it if I was there.

00:04:00.46
Aaron
Yeah, that makes sense.

00:04:00.57
Bradley Palermo
Um, so I kind of wish I did now. I'm kind of curious how it translates. I wonder, I wasn't really that rowdy when I was there. Sometimes I can get that way, but I know you, you kind of made fun of, um, somebody you were like full Nelson. What is this? 1968. Huh?

00:04:16.08
Aaron
Yeah, I don't remember what i we we had some good times. like I called out some shit. What did I i said? ah Oh, I also did an R. NAR ah while Kyle Fletcher was talking.

00:04:27.06
Aaron
and

00:04:27.26
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah, I remember that.

00:04:28.50
Aaron
I don't think that like that came across on the broadcast. But no, it was a it was a fun time. it It was a fun episode of Dynamite like on TV. And yeah, like I said, it got me back into it. I watched Dynamite um again this week.

00:04:43.99
Aaron
And yeah, I'm stoked for us to go to Revolution in a few weeks at Crypto.com Arena. The card already looks good and there's only three matches on it.

00:04:51.01
Bradley Palermo
I wonder if

00:04:54.11
Aaron
So I'm so i'm excited.

00:04:55.89
Bradley Palermo
I wonder if Chris is going to... We were there when Chris Statlander lost. She got screwed out of her Women's World Championship title due to interference.

00:05:07.43
Aaron
No. huh

00:05:09.05
Bradley Palermo
So Tekla has it now, and I'm not too happy about it. Chris is one of my favorites. Tony's another one of my favorites. So um as far as the women's wrestling goes...

00:05:18.48
Bradley Palermo
So i hope I hope that story continues. I don't know where Revolution is going to sit. I'm sure it'll be a huge card. So I'm sure we'll get everybody. Also, I was, yeah I mean, TV doesn't guarantee that the big stars are showing up, but I was kind of bummed that we didn't get Brody and that we didn't get MJF, but that's going to happen.

00:05:32.02
Aaron
no

00:05:35.88
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, they were they were all probably yeah saving their strength for Grand Slam. and aus I think they went to Australia right after that, right?

00:05:45.36
Aaron
Like Grand Slam that that past weekend.

00:05:45.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, the some of those guys probably were already on the plane by the time that happened, right?

00:05:52.92
Aaron
Yeah, which makes sense.

00:05:55.00
Aaron
I don't know if Stat is going to have a rematch with Tekla at Revolution because they just started a program with Tekla and Thunder Rosa who came back on collision this past weekend.

00:06:07.40
Aaron
So my guess is that she'll probably have a match against Thunder at Revolution, which should be good.

00:06:07.74
Bradley Palermo
and

00:06:14.80
Aaron
I'm down for that. I don't think Thunder's going to beat her, but...

00:06:15.82
Bradley Palermo
I'm glad that Thunder's back. Yeah, um I mean, I was wondering where the fuck Thunder was. I think I even said that to you.

00:06:21.20
Aaron
She's been hurt for a while. I think she, she was hurt that first time right after she won the championship and then had to relinquish it. And then i think she came back for a few months and then she got hurt again.

00:06:32.99
Aaron
So I don't know exactly what it is.

00:06:33.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:06:34.93
Aaron
I think she has a lot of back problems, which definitely sucks. So I'm glad that she's back. I'm glad that she's feeling good. And yeah, I always liked her. I mean, that match with her and Britt Baker from 2020 was like insane.

00:06:46.06
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Someday we'll find out what happened to Britt Baker. You know, everyone says that there's more to the story and that, you know, she's a terrible fucking person.

00:06:56.50
Bradley Palermo
I've heard a lot of people say that. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying a lot of people say it. I really want to know what the fuck the real story is.

00:07:02.95
Aaron
You want the Britt Baker tea, huh?

00:07:03.11
Bradley Palermo
Why? We'll get it someday. We'll find out what happened because Tony is just like, oh, she's she's great.

00:07:07.16
Aaron
I'm sure we will, yeah. I mean, she was another one that I liked.

00:07:10.55
Bradley Palermo
I'd hope she comes back someday.

00:07:12.23
Aaron
ah Yeah, tony the the eternal ah politician.

00:07:12.68
Bradley Palermo
You know, it's like, bro.

00:07:17.33
Aaron
Yeah.

00:07:17.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, the door's always open. You know, it's like, dude, no, you fucking... You choose who's on TV, bro. I mean, I don't i didn't love Britt Baker, but she's nostalgic for me because she's...

00:07:28.02
Bradley Palermo
When AEW launched, she's like the OG, like, women's champion, right? Or at least one of the early ones.

00:07:33.08
Aaron
Well, she was the she was one of the early ones. i think they so Riho was the inaugural champion. Then I think Nyla Rose beat her. And then I think Brit maybe beat Nyla.

00:07:43.96
Bradley Palermo
Oh...

00:07:45.20
Aaron
I can't remember exactly, but Brit was a champion for most of the pandemic era. And um I liked Brit. I mean, her matches weren't always terrific, but there were some that were really good.

00:07:58.08
Aaron
And she was definitely ah a crowd favorite and an AEW fan favorite. Um, like

00:08:03.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, she's had the DMT. She's had the hand signals.

00:08:06.51
Aaron
crowd participation, man, you got crowd participation and you're fucking over.

00:08:07.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:08:11.40
Aaron
Uh, like, I'm just like complete ah tangent. I'm really happy that trick Williams is as popular as he is already. He's only been on the roster like two and a half months and the crowds already know what to do. They're already chanting whoop that trick.

00:08:28.12
Aaron
I mean, he's yeah.

00:08:27.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Lemon pepper steppers.

00:08:30.68
Aaron
Like he's it's,

00:08:31.00
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he's he's got the catchphrases. His first appearance on SmackDown when he was doing a promo against Sami, or i think it was, who was amazing.

00:08:39.42
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:08:40.17
Bradley Palermo
You were like, like, I mean, I'd seen him a bunch in other stuff, but I was like, whoa, he just made a splash. Like, he looks really great. I mean, he just looks like a fucking champ, big and fucking flashy, you know, so.

00:08:51.42
Aaron
yeah you know he he i think out of all the people that are are trying to break out a little bit, he's probably the one that's in the lead, like even more so than Oba.

00:09:02.69
Aaron
I like Oba more, but I think Trick is making a bigger impact than Oba is.

00:09:04.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:09:08.01
Aaron
And maybe that's just...

00:09:08.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Oba is like my, don't know, I don't know, my guy, but for the kids, for the, for the new kids, even though Oba is probably not that young, he's, he's like the one I'm excited about. He's a fucking big ass. I just like, I like a big, a big scary ass wrestler that I just believe that you can destroy.

00:09:27.16
Aaron
Yeah.

00:09:26.93
Bradley Palermo
And he calls himself the destroyer. And it's just, but I mean, tricks more.

00:09:31.71
Aaron
Chick's got swag.

00:09:31.35
Bradley Palermo
probably a little bit more mobile. Yeah.

00:09:33.40
Aaron
but i But I think Oba, I actually think I like Oba's in-ring work better.

00:09:33.32
Bradley Palermo
And more. sweating

00:09:38.43
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah.

00:09:38.89
Aaron
Not that that matters. It's not everything, but Trick is Trick is good in the ring, too. And and Trick has improved since I've started watching him, which it's only been like a year, a year and a half, maybe. So, you know, sky's the limit.

00:09:51.62
Bradley Palermo
Cool. Should we do it?

00:09:52.78
Aaron
Yeah.

00:10:06.65
Bradley Palermo
That's right. We're heading back to 1996, February 17th, 1996, the ECW arena in South Philadelphia, I believe. Is that right, Aaron?

00:10:17.33
Aaron
ah I mean, I know it's in Philadelphia, but I don't know if it's in South Philly. It sounds right. I feel like I've heard that.

00:10:23.13
Bradley Palermo
That's what I kept saying. South Philadelphia.

00:10:25.68
Aaron
Okay, if they said it, then that then then they're right.

00:10:27.38
Bradley Palermo
Um,

00:10:27.92
Aaron
I believe them, not me.

00:10:29.72
Bradley Palermo
okay uh it's loud as hell from the jump um bunch of dudes are already in the ring no explanation no we don't even i don't even know what this match is it's just chaos and that's the perfect way to set up this fucking thing um joey styles on commentary by himself of course um a crowd of almost 200 people This is actually is a little bit over 200 people, but that this that shows how indie this thing was.

00:10:58.89
Aaron
Yeah.

00:10:58.55
Bradley Palermo
This is a grainy like VHS tape before ECW was probably, well, certainly before it was known to the level that it is today.

00:11:07.47
Aaron
Yeah.

00:11:07.44
Bradley Palermo
um Sandman hits the ring early, right? is He's already out there with his kendo sticks and shit.

00:11:13.50
Aaron
Yeah, well, I mean, the the this is, i i guess we should explain a little bit about what we watch.

00:11:13.34
Bradley Palermo
Crowd loves him

00:11:20.98
Aaron
So I don't, I don't know.

00:11:21.54
Bradley Palermo
This is a compilation? yeah I guess so.

00:11:24.62
Aaron
It's certainly, so Parts of it definitely did not happen on the night of the majority of the matches. So the way that this was structured, ah it was basically just very few wrestler entrances, very like almost no backstage segments. There was like this very famous little staticky...

00:11:47.42
Aaron
picture cut thing that ECW used to do. And they use that to transition from one segment to the next. So it does feel like it's a compilation, like you said, almost like it's, um,

00:11:59.32
Aaron
Like it's a tape from back in the day with tape traders, you know?

00:12:02.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:02.73
Aaron
um So we basically just start with, like you said, with people already in the ring in the first match, is six-man tag, ah the bad crew, Dog and Rose, and Judge Dredd versus Dino Sendoff, Don E.

00:12:22.14
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:12:24.31
Bradley Palermo
The dirt bike kid does look like he is a dirt bike rider. Somehow they he makes that obvious in his appearance.

00:12:29.80
Aaron
They nailed that with the haircut. Yeah.

00:12:32.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they did. But I was just like, okay, this it's like, I mean, you got at least who was in that match. i was just like, I'm not counting this one because it looks like it's almost done by the time the the fucking thing starts.

00:12:43.71
Aaron
I mean, that's basically how I felt too, though.

00:12:43.38
Bradley Palermo
But there was a guy in...

00:12:45.51
Aaron
I was like, oh, what's going on here? Oh, it's over. All right, cool.

00:12:48.96
Bradley Palermo
I kept wondering if we were, if this, this is, um again, this is called ECW cyber slam. I believe it aired on the internet, which was a very archaic early internet.

00:12:58.81
Bradley Palermo
I would think in 1996, I don't know how you're like AOL CompuServe shit would handle that. It was, it used to take like an hour to get the fucking weather. So I'm not really sure exactly how this thing played out online or if it counts as a pay-per-view, if it was online and then on video later.

00:13:15.95
Aaron
I don't know. So i don't know if it was an online thing. i mean, what what it's saying on ah Wikipedia is that excerpts aired on episodes of their TV show.

00:13:28.40
Aaron
And, um you know, like they eventually released it.

00:13:28.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I see.

00:13:43.35
Bradley Palermo
i see

00:13:47.55
Aaron
So it it felt... piece together. And I think that's because it was, I mean, that there are some talking segments, some promo segments, I guess you could call them. And those are most definitely not from this specific paper for you. You can tell because the crowd is different.

00:14:03.100
Aaron
Um, the way they're being introduced by Joey styles doesn't make sense if they were actually taking place, you know, on the same night as these other matches. So it definitely had a weird vibe to it.

00:14:14.08
Bradley Palermo
So there was a guy with a cowboy hat who was like super pissed off and yelling at all the wrestlers. And he was in... I think most matches, because sometimes i was like, is this the same night?

00:14:25.52
Bradley Palermo
But just because it's different nights, it doesn't mean Cowboy, Angry Cowboy guy wasn't there all the nights.

00:14:30.59
Aaron
Sure.

00:14:30.44
Bradley Palermo
Because even in the indies today, like you do see the same fools in the same seats you know every time you go, wearing the same bullshit. So it was it was interesting.

00:14:40.50
Bradley Palermo
I mean, we can just i mean we i guess we already kind of got into it, but the first announced match was El Puerto...

00:14:48.38
Aaron
Rikenyo.

00:14:48.26
Bradley Palermo
Rick, Rick Kenya.

00:14:50.20
Aaron
el port El Puerto Riqueño.

00:14:49.92
Bradley Palermo
Okay. up

00:14:52.96
Aaron
And he was not from Puerto Rico, which was actually funny.

00:14:53.40
Bradley Palermo
Versus

00:14:55.92
Aaron
He was El Puerto Riqueño and he was from Ecuador.

00:15:02.25
Aaron
Spiros Greco. Isn't that what his name is?

00:15:04.49
Bradley Palermo
Oh, is that what it was?

00:15:05.63
Aaron
Yeah, was he was like the Greek. his is His trunk said like the Greek God or whatever.

00:15:08.31
Bradley Palermo
oh yeah.

00:15:09.99
Aaron
He was Spiros Greco. I guess he was making his ECW debut. crowd was booing him ferociously. I was watching this partially with headphones. And when I was watching it with headphones, I heard the crowd chant, like half the crowd chants, Greek guy sucks. And then the other the other half chants, dick. So was Greek guy sucks, dick. Greek guy sucks, dick.

00:15:33.26
Aaron
Pretty funny.

00:15:33.16
Bradley Palermo
Let me, um just so I have it, versus sp Spiros Greco. Okay. there I also noticed they were saying, um because it was Spiros' his first match with ECW, they were saying, who are you?

00:15:45.50
Aaron
Right.

00:15:45.31
Bradley Palermo
Who are you?

00:15:47.32
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:15:47.99
Bradley Palermo
It's a rowdy fucking crowd.

00:15:49.72
Aaron
They were super rowdy. I mean, just like in the first five minutes, I wrote down, man, I know what that place smells like. Fucking spilled beer, body odor and cigarettes.

00:15:57.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:02.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they were smoking inside still back then for sure.

00:16:06.27
Aaron
I mean, even if they weren't, you know, half of that crowd, half of those 250 people were probably smoking cigarettes.

00:16:06.52
Bradley Palermo
um

00:16:11.43
Aaron
And yeah,

00:16:11.64
Bradley Palermo
i mean, later on, the wrestlers were smoking cigarettes and they on like on camera and stuff.

00:16:15.45
Aaron
True. Yes. Classic Sandman.

00:16:16.90
Bradley Palermo
so So yeah, this was a warm-up match.

00:16:20.89
Aaron
Just kind of a long squash. It was like a four-minute squash match.

00:16:24.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, the Greek god dude gets the win.

00:16:28.44
Bradley Palermo
It was... it was

00:16:32.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was whatever. Meltzer gave it a one star. uh,

00:16:36.08
Aaron
It was fine.

00:16:36.40
Bradley Palermo
and

00:16:36.84
Aaron
It's just, you know, i'm already two matches in and I'm, and it's, and it's been like 10 minutes and I'm like, well, who are these people? I don't even have a chance to really understand who they are what's going on At least.

00:16:48.28
Bradley Palermo
You can't see shit. It's like really bad video, really bad lighting. And it's like the crowd is louder than the announcer. It's hard to hear what anyone on mic in the ring says. I mean, you can hear Joey Styles, but you can't really... When someone says something on the mic in the ring, it's drowned out. like We're talking like pretty gritty quality.

00:17:12.12
Bradley Palermo
Everyone's just kind of drunk and on or on drugs and they don't really know what they're planning to do.

00:17:14.36
Aaron
Oh yeah.

00:17:16.20
Bradley Palermo
It seems kind of like a free-for-all sort of situation. so

00:17:20.47
Aaron
There certainly are some moments.

00:17:20.54
Bradley Palermo
i mean

00:17:33.44
Aaron
um I heard a Taz is going to kill you, Chan, which was appropriate. And ah this was interesting because i don't, I think, I don't know if we've watched something in ECW.

00:17:44.83
Aaron
I think maybe we watched ECW Heat Wave 96, but, or maybe it's 90, I don't know.

00:17:48.76
Bradley Palermo
eight 8? Oh, maybe, yeah.

00:17:51.49
Aaron
I don't know if we've watched something this old from ECW because Taz is a heel. um

00:17:55.40
Bradley Palermo
Yo.

00:17:56.26
Aaron
And he you know he's getting some cheers and stuff, but for the most part, he's he's a bad guy. And you know great suplexes, doing doing the thing that Taz does. He wins with the Taz mission in like two minutes.

00:18:08.05
Aaron
um Some guys come out to try and help Joel, and ta Taz suplexes them right on the back of their heads. Eventually, Mikey Whipwreck comes out, and he gives Taz a run for his money for a minute, but then...

00:18:19.47
Aaron
Taz dumps him on his head too, puts him in the Taz mission. So was basically just another squash to make Taz look like a badass.

00:18:25.06
Bradley Palermo
Taz is calling, they're calling Taz the one man crime spree and his tagline is just another victim, you know? So I guess that's the point is just Taz comes out and wrecks fucking everyone.

00:18:33.22
Aaron
Yeah.

00:18:37.65
Bradley Palermo
He'd run 911 out of ECW apparently recently before that.

00:18:42.08
Aaron
Yep.

00:18:42.67
Bradley Palermo
I don't know what to what the whole, so um yeah, this is sort of like a big early Taz push, I suppose.

00:18:43.17
Aaron
They did mention that. Yeah.

00:18:49.89
Aaron
Yeah, because eventually he sort of takes on a more like UFC mixed martial arts kind of gimmick.

00:18:50.09
Bradley Palermo
And then,

00:18:56.89
Aaron
I mean, it's not that different from what he's doing right now, but I think in the next like year or two, he changes quite a bit. don't know.

00:19:14.59
Bradley Palermo
ring.

00:19:15.59
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:15.56
Bradley Palermo
And he does...

00:19:16.57
Aaron
Crowd loves this. Holy shit.

00:19:18.56
Bradley Palermo
they're losing their mind. And he does, I guess what would be called a worked shoot, um, where he buries Eric Bischoff.

00:19:23.20
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:19:26.57
Bradley Palermo
He's calls him Eric Jack off. He goes on and on about like constitutional rights and how Philly is where they wrote the constitution. I don't know what he's saying.

00:19:35.65
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:35.41
Bradley Palermo
Fuck like constantly. And he, you know, Brian Pillman's kind of does the madman thing.

00:19:37.78
Aaron
Yeah.

00:19:40.38
Bradley Palermo
You know, it's like, he's the guy that boy broke into fucking Austin's house on camera. Right. That one time.

00:19:45.96
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, people don't know if if what he's saying is real or not.

00:19:46.54
Bradley Palermo
Had like a gun or some shit. he's

00:19:51.65
Aaron
That's the the whole the whole idea. Right. He's swearing. He says he's calling the crowd a bunch of smart marks. He says he's going to take a piss in the ring.

00:20:00.66
Bradley Palermo
Dude, before... Okay, first of all, when he calls the crowd of Marks, he's like, you know what a Mark is? It's the guy who spends his last $20 on crack. Or it's a guy...

00:20:10.77
Bradley Palermo
who goes to one of these ECW shows or whatever. And he's like, you're all Marx. But then when he tries to piss in the ring, I'm going to, he, it's funny. He says, I'm going to pull out my Johnson, which is a very nineties thing to call a dick, but then piss in the ring.

00:20:21.29
Aaron
Yeah. ah senator

00:20:24.99
Bradley Palermo
And the crowd starts chanting, let him piss, let him piss.

00:20:27.85
Aaron
Right.

00:20:29.11
Bradley Palermo
Like the fucking,

00:20:29.52
Aaron
Because people come out to stop him. Heyman comes out. They, you know, this was kind of interesting, right? That he's, he's, he's gonna try to pee in the ring and then some people come out, Paul Heyman comes out and they make it seem like Pillman is going off script, you know, like wasn't the deal and they're swearing at each other and blah, blah, blah.

00:20:47.93
Aaron
It was kind of interesting.

00:20:49.38
Bradley Palermo
Well, then he spits at a fan, which is obviously planted, right? Or is that supposed to be a wrestler in them or in the audience?

00:20:55.70
Aaron
I think it, no, it was, it was a fan quote unquote.

00:20:58.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, quote unquote fan.

00:20:58.70
Aaron
Yeah.

00:20:59.32
Bradley Palermo
He spits in the fan and it hits the fan in the face the with the spit. The fan spits back at him and he pulls the fan over the railing, beats the shit out of the fan and the fan has to be stretched.

00:21:09.74
Aaron
Stabs him in the head with a fork or something.

00:21:10.87
Bradley Palermo
her Yeah, yeah.

00:21:12.63
Aaron
don't know.

00:21:12.52
Bradley Palermo
And they stretch him out.

00:21:13.09
Aaron
Yeah.

00:21:14.00
Bradley Palermo
It's completely unhinged. And They should have had him wrestle someone, but they made a huge hoopla out of it, and he eventually left. And if you go to indie shows today, this kind of thing could happen where you'll get like a legend or someone from another promotion coming out. You might get Chris Jericho coming out and...

00:21:36.00
Bradley Palermo
talking shit and running away or whatever. it's like, not guaranteed, but you get like cool shit like this happening. So it's interesting just to see like the 96 version of that.

00:21:42.16
Aaron
Yeah.

00:21:45.89
Bradley Palermo
Cause Pillman was what in WCW still at the time.

00:21:49.26
Aaron
ah If he wasn't still there, i don't know where he was at 96. I mean, my guess is he was either leaving WCW or.

00:22:00.52
Aaron
Was leaving WWF, I can't remember, honestly. Either way, it was a strange it was a strange segment.

00:22:03.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:22:06.76
Aaron
i think it I enjoyed it, but it went on a little too long. like Once he's beating up the fan in the ring, Shane Douglas came out. or I guess he came out with everyone else, but when Pillman starts attacking the fan, Shane Douglas comes in, tries to break it up, and then he gets on the mic and he's like, i'm you know I want to fight you or else you better get your ass out of the arena or whatever. And then it takes like three minutes for him to get out of the arena and get escorted out. He tries to come back in but then gets taken out again. It was just like, it kind of didn't stick the landing.

00:22:38.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, by the way, um, that Taz squash, um, Meltzer gave it a dud, which is interesting.

00:22:45.08
Bradley Palermo
But, uh, after the Brian Pillman craziness unhinged thing, which I think also was relevant. I think like I'm reading some stuff online now that people say that that was the day when, um, when his like unhinged, um, sort of character was, was born.

00:23:02.14
Bradley Palermo
um

00:23:03.26
Aaron
okay. Okay. Well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense for sure.

00:23:04.12
Bradley Palermo
So.

00:23:06.37
Aaron
He was definitely unhinged.

00:23:08.71
Bradley Palermo
And he was real he was felt like he was being overlooked by um but him and Steve Austin were being overlooked in WCW by the likes of Hogan and Flair and Savage. and

00:23:19.72
Aaron
Yeah.

00:23:19.43
Bradley Palermo
So that's where like the shoot element was. So, that's cool. But then we get into a a match after that, which was Bubba Ray Dudley versus Mr. Hughes. um You know, Bubba Ray's a babyface still at this point.

00:23:32.34
Aaron
Yeah, this was crazy, dude.

00:23:32.68
Bradley Palermo
He's coming

00:23:34.04
Aaron
Happy go lucky dancing baby face Bubba. I have never seen this before, so i was like, what is this?

00:23:38.17
Bradley Palermo
he is a terrible dancer but he's doing all this like sort of he's in his 90s hip yeah it's like fucking criss crisscross yeah he was doing all that shit and then um his all the other dudleys are also you know they all had the overalls and the tie-dyed and they're all happy and the crowd's happy to see him and mr hughes is

00:23:39.82
Aaron
It's It's doing 90s hip hop dance and I forget what that. But that was kind of looked like the running man.

00:23:59.27
Bradley Palermo
kind of what he always has been just big old tall dude and suspenders and shit. And, uh, match isn't much to write home about though. It's, it's all about the entrances Bubba dancing and looking ridiculous.

00:24:11.12
Bradley Palermo
Um, big Dick Dudley hits huge with the, uh, Hughes with the crutches right away. Bubba gets the pin and, uh, it seems like nobody, nobody's in control of this show whatsoever.

00:24:18.91
Aaron
And that's it.

00:24:21.73
Bradley Palermo
That's it. There's a minute, you know?

00:24:23.93
Aaron
Yep. Yep. What did Dave give that one?

00:24:25.03
Bradley Palermo
um,

00:24:26.08
Aaron
A dud?

00:24:26.97
Bradley Palermo
I don't have it on that one. So it must.

00:24:28.44
Aaron
Okay.

00:24:28.41
Bradley Palermo
Oh, no, he did. He did. He I've got it right here. Dud also. Yes.

00:24:32.44
Aaron
Yeah, that makes sense.

00:24:33.05
Bradley Palermo
Correct.

00:24:33.56
Aaron
Well, next match was supposed to be...

00:24:33.85
Bradley Palermo
no

00:24:36.04
Bradley Palermo
This thing is dud heavy, by the way.

00:24:38.54
Aaron
i i

00:24:38.25
Bradley Palermo
We've had two duds and we're going to have more. Go ahead.

00:24:41.18
Aaron
I'm not surprised that the next one next match ah was supposed to be Mustafa and New Jack versus the headhunters.

00:24:51.48
Aaron
But New Jack is supposedly in jail, or at least that's what they say. Mustafa comes out and he starts talking and. and um Yeah. So then the headhunters come out and they start beating him up and, and then the bruise brothers come out, I guess.

00:25:11.68
Aaron
I,

00:25:11.48
Bradley Palermo
Ron and Don Harris.

00:25:15.96
Aaron
It's yeah, Don, Don and Ron bruise is what they're called in ECW.

00:25:21.44
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

00:25:23.00
Aaron
And and so the headhunters manager puts out a challenge.

00:25:28.28
Bradley Palermo
These guys are skull and eight ball that we know from the other shows, right? No.

00:25:32.12
Aaron
Are they? i don't know.

00:25:33.63
Bradley Palermo
Yes. Um,

00:25:35.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's it's skull and eight ball. Yeah, it's the same dudes.

00:25:38.64
Aaron
Oh, yeah. Your favorite neo-Nazis.

00:25:39.75
Bradley Palermo
Okay. They're not, they're Nazis. Yeah, yeah. As we've, yeah, yeah, go go ahead though.

00:25:43.41
Aaron
um so So, so out come the Bruise Brothers to answer the the challenge of the headhunters manager. They get a big pop when they come out um and they just start fighting all over the place. Chairs, they're in the crowd.

00:25:58.13
Aaron
And this is another one. It's just like it's four minutes. I can't really get into it. I'm just like, oh more crazy stuff, crowd fighting, using weapons.

00:26:08.28
Aaron
It's just like, i so i feel like I start to glaze over a little bit, you know? um

00:26:12.28
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I wrote, i would love to see an actual match about right about now. Like I was getting kind of irritated at this point. I was like, we're, i mean we've we've seen like this crazy promo we've seen like one kind of match that was a couple minutes long at the beginning and then like some squashes and you know fucking weapons and stuff we haven't seen like a fucking match that you could get behind and things ebb and flow so melzer gave this one a dud also and i would agree

00:26:38.66
Aaron
Yeah.

00:26:41.83
Bradley Palermo
um

00:26:42.25
Aaron
And then we don't get a match. We get another segment and another one that feels like it didn't happen on this night. Tommy Dreamer and Bula come out and before they can even really get going and talking, Raven and his group, the nest interrupts.

00:26:57.27
Aaron
They, they talk for a little bit between the two of them and then they all attack Tommy. And that's pretty much like the end of the segment. I'm like, huh?

00:27:04.10
Bradley Palermo
yeah dreamer has like an injured shoulder and the nest the nest the flock like this raven guy is funny but uh yeah i guess it progressed their story in some way and then we get what was his name jt smith versus axel rotten and uh

00:27:20.02
Aaron
Yes. Yes. And this one was a little better, I guess. I mean, it it's it pretty much started the same way as the others like Axel Rotten comes out second. JT Smith jumps in from behind on the floor. They fight outside for a few minutes. Nothing all that exciting. When they finally get into the ring, they do some normal wrestling stuff. But then this one's also just like over before I can get invested.

00:27:44.61
Bradley Palermo
Do you ever notice in wrestling, if you get hit by a chair straight ahead, like when you're fighting with someone, they hit you with a chair like mid mid-match. You know, it causes damage.

00:27:54.01
Bradley Palermo
But if someone's distracting you and then you turn around, you get if you get surprise attacked by a chair, even though it's the same hit in the head, you're dead.

00:28:01.05
Aaron
You're dead.

00:28:02.45
Bradley Palermo
yeah Or if like say say you're in a tag match and you're on the side of the ring. and you're you're not tagged in, and someone hits you, it is like 10 times more damaging than if you're the legal man.

00:28:09.100
Aaron
Right. youre you You're down for two minutes. Yeah.

00:28:15.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:28:16.29
Aaron
It's very convenient.

00:28:16.11
Bradley Palermo
um if you're If you're a big, strong wrestler who can go for an hour in an Ironman contest, you know, taking hits left and right.

00:28:25.90
Bradley Palermo
It's one thing, but if you all of a sudden become a special guest referee or you're in someone else's corner, you know, like one elbow to the noggin and you're done. It's funny how these rules work, but I accept them as, as truth.

00:28:37.91
Bradley Palermo
But, um, I think that happened in, in one of these, in, in this situation. Um, it was, um, JT pretended to fall off the turnbuckle,

00:28:43.05
Aaron
Yeah, no, I think i think this was ah what what happened here. Right.

00:28:49.57
Aaron
Right.

00:28:49.42
Bradley Palermo
with a chair, like a clumsy, like fall and.

00:29:05.12
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:29:06.83
Aaron
And then, yeah.

00:29:06.76
Bradley Palermo
And everyone laughs at him and you look kind of, yeah.

00:29:09.52
Aaron
And then and then Axel like turns away. This is yeah, exactly what he he turns around. He's like, I got him, whatever. And then JT whacks him in the back of the head and then gets the pin and wins.

00:29:21.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And because he didn't expect it, it's like, I mean, how many times did they strangle and smack each other with shit before that with, you know, wire and chairs, but like the surprise hit, that was it for the one, two, three. And, uh,

00:29:33.77
Aaron
But he keeps attacking him once JT keeps attacking Axel once he wins. And then he finally does do the moonsault with the chair. And you're like, oh, that was really impressive. I don't know why you felt like you had to had to pretend like you fell off.

00:29:47.100
Aaron
And then they keep fighting. Another guy, hacked Hack Myers, comes out with a couple of refs to stop them the post-match attack.

00:29:52.33
Bradley Palermo
Well, that's when Hackmire, yeah.

00:29:57.14
Aaron
And then he gets attacked.

00:29:57.20
Bradley Palermo
everything

00:29:59.37
Aaron
I'm just like, what is going on here?

00:30:01.14
Bradley Palermo
Everything in ECW is, every match is just as long in the aftermath portion of the match as as ah as it as it is in length, you know, between the actual belts.

00:30:11.45
Bradley Palermo
Like, everything has post-match run in almost everything, which kind of,

00:30:15.66
Aaron
Yeah.

00:30:25.08
Aaron
It's just unpredictable. it was something that, you know, we didn't didn't really happen back then. So it's it's hard now because when you see stuff like this, you're like, yeah, yeah.

00:30:35.57
Aaron
This is taking things to the extreme, pun intended, but it's just something that we've seen so much now.

00:30:38.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:30:41.41
Aaron
It just kind of, it doesn't have as much specialness to it, I guess.

00:30:46.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:30:47.45
Aaron
I don't know.

00:30:48.36
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:30:55.28
Aaron
ah

00:31:07.89
Aaron
ah

00:31:12.89
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:21.48
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:25.72
Bradley Palermo
So it's like, it is like an important part of wrestling, but they just did so much of the run in shit, you know?

00:31:32.06
Aaron
Yeah. It just got to be tiring in this particular show. And, you know, I looked at the next match on paper and I was like,

00:31:36.31
Bradley Palermo
hmm.

00:31:40.28
Aaron
I don't know about this, but, and, and I think I was right, quite frankly, but, uh, the.

00:31:46.42
Bradley Palermo
Well, the, um, sorry, JT Smith versus Axel rotten got two and a half stars. So, so far that was the best match on the card. According to the Dave Meltzer's wrestling observer newsletter, but go ahead for the, for the next one.

00:31:56.54
Aaron
Okay. That's fair. I guess. Uh, the next one. i didn't love it. It was the eliminators, the ECD ECW tag champs. So that was, um,

00:32:12.42
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

00:32:17.04
Aaron
And this was a six-man tag match, but it was a dog collar match. So there are three dog collars. And I was like, I don't know about this.

00:32:24.73
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:32:27.41
Aaron
This seems like it's going to be a ah big mess. And it definitely was because... I think it took like two minutes before somebody's, you know, dog collar, like everyone's got the collars, but then there's the chain connecting the two collars.

00:32:41.43
Aaron
Somebody's chain came off the collar, like it within two minutes. And i'm like, Oh God, this is just like,

00:32:44.79
Bradley Palermo
I mean, was Stevie Richards and, or Stevie Richards and Francine ever collared to each other?

00:32:51.35
Aaron
they They were for like maybe 10 seconds and then Stevie immediately took the call.

00:32:54.82
Bradley Palermo
Okay, okay, yeah, because...

00:32:57.44
Aaron
Like he he super kicked Francine, she got knocked out and then he took the collar off immediately.

00:33:02.79
Bradley Palermo
Okay, yeah.

00:33:03.68
Aaron
So it was

00:33:03.72
Bradley Palermo
A dog collar match can be cool, but now it's six people. That's just crazy.

00:33:08.10
Aaron
not with three dog collars. like i was I was skeptical about FTR Brisco's dog collar match, but that shit was incredible.

00:33:09.80
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:33:17.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:33:18.45
Aaron
You know, so I say two dog collars is probably the maximum for any dog collar match.

00:33:18.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's cool.

00:33:22.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's... Brian Smith- Right. Yeah, I am with you.

00:33:26.66
Aaron
I don't know. this this was that was another mess for me. like Besides the attaching and reattaching the chains, there was just no flow to this match. It was the longest match so far. I think it was almost 15 minutes.

00:33:39.91
Aaron
And you know they're fighting in the crowd. There was some funny stuff where like fans kept handing things to the wrestlers for them to attack each other with. And so like, there were all kinds of random things.

00:33:48.25
Bradley Palermo
Smith- Yeah.

00:33:50.68
Aaron
I think somebody took a pie out of a box and gave it to a wrestler and someone got pied in the face.

00:33:53.75
Bradley Palermo
Oh my God.

00:33:56.44
Aaron
Like that was funny. I just, you know, you kind of miss that stuff. Like they didn't, they couldn't really make a moment out of it. Like you would see in AEW or w WWE. Cause they just didn't have the production that those companies have now.

00:34:06.01
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.

00:34:18.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And I guess it was Stevie Richards made the refer or the ring announcer announced him as like the man of steel, Stevie Richards, super Stevie.

00:34:30.33
Bradley Palermo
He's like wearing a Superman half shirt. I mean, there's this all kinds of like goofy ass shit happening all over this thing. But, um, ultimately pit bull number two, Penn Stevie and, uh,

00:34:43.52
Aaron
No, it's Francine.

00:34:44.65
Bradley Palermo
Oh, right. why I knew that. Why did I have it as a... Yeah. Eventually, Francine pinned Stevie and... ah weren' Weren't the the Eliminators or tag champions?

00:34:54.58
Bradley Palermo
Obviously, this wasn't... The title wasn't involved because it was three on three, but...

00:34:58.61
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're they're the tag champs. I mean, there were some, again, there were some cool things, like, towards the latter half of the match, they start fighting towards the back of the arena, and there's, like, in the ECW arena, there's, like, this raised platform thing, and that's where the commentary table is with Joey Styles.

00:35:18.63
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:35:19.44
Aaron
So they start kind of going over there, they climb up on it. ah The Eliminators did, like, a cool... moonsault where like I think it might have been Saturn that did the moonsault, but Cronus like holds his hands for for Saturn to like use as a as a jumping off point. So that was kind of cool.

00:35:36.16
Aaron
Somebody got slammed through a table. i mean, the you know, this is where I wrote down the crowd is very loud. But there's not a lot of audible chance that the entire arena is participating in.

00:35:46.58
Aaron
You know, it just like a bunch of crowd noise that feels indecipherable. This is where I started really noticing where like they're loud, they're excited, but they're not excited in unison like we are now.

00:35:59.01
Aaron
You know what I mean?

00:35:59.73
Bradley Palermo
Right. There's all every... Yeah, everyone's kind of just rogued and shouting whatever the fuck they want to.

00:36:10.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:36:12.76
Aaron
um

00:36:13.68
Bradley Palermo
Like walking into a a really loud packed bar without the music on.

00:36:16.64
Aaron
Bar or Yeah.

00:36:19.36
Bradley Palermo
you Or if the music was low and you just hear... i advise ra ah Yeah, restaurant.

00:36:23.62
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, that's what it felt like to me.

00:36:23.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. yeah

00:36:25.98
Aaron
And this is also where i think I noticed that we were watching yet another ECW pay-per-view where we cannot hear any of the original music. And I'll get to it later, but man, it still just bugs me because like you just can't you can't hear the crowd. You can't you can't get into it.

00:36:46.61
Bradley Palermo
Are they overdubbing the music or because it's also quiet? So I can't, are they overdubbing it and turning it down or is it just, it didn't come through on the audio?

00:36:55.06
Aaron
there' So it happens the most in the main event. That's where it's most obvious. What they're doing is they're ducking the music and the crowd entirely. And then you're just hearing Joey Styles and then they're playing whatever they want to whatever music they want to overdub it with.

00:37:10.94
Aaron
And then they're using some kind of canned crowd reactions or crowd you know audio.

00:37:14.46
Bradley Palermo
Okay, that's what its it seems weird. Yeah, okay, I got you.

00:37:18.90
Aaron
But yeah, well when we get to the main event, we can talk more about it.

00:37:20.82
Bradley Palermo
It seemed like they were using audio from earlier, whatever they had in the crowd, they were dropping it in to that part.

00:37:28.04
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, it it feels really bad when you know what's going on.

00:37:28.48
Bradley Palermo
Like, okay, yeah.

00:37:32.21
Aaron
But anyway, we'll get to that in a minute.

00:37:32.36
Bradley Palermo
you're Right, right.

00:37:34.08
Aaron
um On to the next and best match of the card, thank God.

00:37:36.71
Bradley Palermo
Oh, Meltzer gave Meltzer gave that one a three.

00:37:40.58
Aaron
ah three for the dog collar match?

00:37:40.63
Bradley Palermo
Surprisingly, three. That's what I've got here. Me either.

00:37:44.54
Aaron
Okay. Well, I don't agree with that at all, but I guess maybe for the time it was probably like, I don't, I've, I've never seen a triple dog collar match since this. So maybe this, that's why he was like, Oh my God, how innovative.

00:37:54.37
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:37:57.34
Aaron
And, I don't know.

00:37:57.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:37:58.90
Aaron
But yes, we're on to what I consider to be the only real, only one of two real wrestling matches on this 10 match card.

00:37:58.84
Bradley Palermo
Who knows?

00:38:08.07
Aaron
Too Cold Scorpio versus Sabu for the ECW World Television Championship. Thank God.

00:38:14.57
Bradley Palermo
Scorpio is the champion.

00:38:16.11
Aaron
Yes, Too Cold Scorpio is a champion.

00:38:15.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:38:17.83
Aaron
And this match is good. Maybe it's just because i know both of these guys are But no, this is objectively like a good match. It has flow. There's like rationale.

00:38:29.63
Bradley Palermo
My notes said finally a fucking match.

00:38:30.01
Aaron
i don't know.

00:38:32.95
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:52.32
Bradley Palermo
you know, like it was good. And you know, obviously, we know Sabu and jumping off a shit with chairs and springboarding off a shit with chairs and crazy moonsaults over the guardrail and fucking one point hit his fucking legs hard on the guardrail and he did one of those jumps out of the ring.

00:39:07.40
Aaron
Yeah.

00:39:08.90
Bradley Palermo
But um and then Scorpio the throw in the stiff chops and Sabu

00:39:13.22
Aaron
Just big splashes and things off the top. Like Scorpio is a Scorpio is big, you know, like to be doing some of the stuff that he was doing.

00:39:16.35
Bradley Palermo
through tables. Yeah.

00:39:21.57
Aaron
I was pretty impressed. Yeah.

00:39:23.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, there's no question this was the match of the night. I mean, this thing was a breath of fresh air. And it, ah you know, it went, they went to, the they took it to the limit. They went 30 minutes.

00:39:32.48
Bradley Palermo
So they made it count. You know, it was a time limit draw. So there was no title change, but it was, it was, it was good.

00:39:38.28
Aaron
Yeah, it was terrific. I mean, they they do, so like you said, they do some crazy shit, right? Sabu... puts a table, sets up a table on the opposite side of the guard railing, like where the fans are.

00:39:49.82
Aaron
He puts Scorpio on it and grabs a chair, sets it up to do the normal thing where he uses it to catapult up to the top rope and then springboard off. And he does like a somersault, but Scorpio is gone off the table by this point. So Sabu just goes straight through the table. And that that was like...

00:40:06.79
Aaron
Even that, you know, which I mean, you don't see that specific thing happen anymore, but that that was super crazy and that you got an ECW chant for that. So yeah, it just kept going.

00:40:15.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:40:16.98
Aaron
And I I ah didn't remember that it was a that it was a draw. So I enjoyed it. I just just like, holy crap, this this is like like an AEW match with all these kickouts.

00:40:29.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Um, I wasn't wrong though. Right. It is a draw, right?

00:40:33.87
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, it was a 30-minute time limit draw.

00:40:33.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah

00:40:36.43
Aaron
it you know it was kind of hard to compare anything else on the pay-per-view to this match because everything else was just a shit show or just way too short to get invested in. And, you know...

00:40:47.78
Aaron
i I tried to think about what it would be like to be there. You know, you're like in your early to mid twenty s It's ah probably a Sunday night or a Saturday night.

00:40:59.99
Aaron
And you're just drinking beers and you're getting a buzz going. And so like, maybe you don't even really care. You know maybe you don't need all the story and psychology that we appreciate.

00:41:12.68
Aaron
If you're just there and you're just vibing, drinking, seeing violent shit, maybe that's all you need.

00:41:15.79
Bradley Palermo
You know,

00:41:35.88
Bradley Palermo
GCW shows where we're just getting fucked up, me and my friends. And like, we're just like, kind of were saying earlier, we're being loud. Everyone's being loud. Some people are watching, some people aren't.

00:41:45.83
Bradley Palermo
And you just have a fun time and you're not really worrying about ring psychology. But sometimes I think back of like matches and I'm like, Man, they really took me for a ride. Like I was captivated and and in the indies, you know, so it could be both.

00:41:55.47
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:41:58.32
Bradley Palermo
But I've also been to really bad indie shows where it's just chaos, fucked up guys setting up shit slowly and making each other bleed in the audience and stuff.

00:42:09.29
Bradley Palermo
And it it can get like really dumb. But I don't know if it was 90s if I would feel that way. But i I'm just like, you know what? This fucking guy, he probably hasn't trained a day in his life. And he's just willing to show up here in Phoenix and fucking bleed. And it's like, I'm just not, I'm not entertained by you at all. So I don't know. could go either way, right? but um

00:42:27.64
Aaron
Yeah.

00:42:27.68
Bradley Palermo
But i feel like I've been in circumstances similar to what we're watching.

00:42:33.68
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, a there's a time and a place for everything, I would assume.

00:42:33.68
Bradley Palermo
and I can be

00:42:36.99
Aaron
um i I can't recall going to a wrestling show and not paying attention to the wrestling and just getting super drunk, but I could see how that would be fun, and I could see how like that was the vibe, right? Just living life to the extreme. Thankfully, we had this match, and it was still... like To me, this is what ECW is. Like...

00:42:57.57
Aaron
it it was a match that had structure. It had back and forth. It had a ton of crazy, you know, violent stuff and things that you wouldn't see in WCW or WWF at the time.

00:43:09.74
Aaron
So like, this is what I feel like, you know, makes sense. When I think about ECW, i'm like, yeah, it's this or it's the next match or the final match. So I enjoyed this.

00:43:18.65
Bradley Palermo
right

00:43:20.02
Aaron
What Dave think about this one?

00:43:21.67
Bradley Palermo
give it a three and three quarter star which is high praise for dave melzer i believe but and then we get on to cactus jack versus shane douglas two of the big ecw stars um

00:43:25.40
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. yeah

00:43:37.02
Bradley Palermo
Shane Douglas and Entourage. i don't know who the fuck he had all out there with them. But he's calling himself the franchise. isn't Didn't John Cena later use that? Call himself the franchise?

00:43:47.16
Aaron
I don't know, but I do remember that this was Shane Douglas's, like he was called the franchise for a long time in ECW.

00:43:53.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:43:55.41
Aaron
So maybe, I don't know.

00:43:55.80
Bradley Palermo
Okay, yeah.

00:43:57.48
Aaron
This kind of, this kind of felt like more of the same for a little bit.

00:44:09.85
Aaron
too cold Scorpio and Sabu, i would say, you know, not, not as involved, not as much back and forth, but, um, I liked it there. Okay.

00:44:18.16
Aaron
Did you, did you see when cactus Jack spit a loogie straight up in the air and then tried to catch it in his mouth again?

00:44:25.27
Bradley Palermo
ah

00:44:26.47
Aaron
That shit was gross.

00:44:26.21
Bradley Palermo
I missed that.

00:44:27.51
Aaron
I was like, Oh my God. and And I think Joey styles is like, this is classic cactus. Jack. was like, what the hell, man?

00:44:45.54
Bradley Palermo
And he says that he sees it as an homage we all go to our graves thinking that we'll never be forgotten and we were forgotten 10 minutes later. so when someone does that, there is a bit of homage to that, but I will say, first off, there are copyrights involved. And second, I never,

00:45:01.75
Bradley Palermo
I think pretended is what he means to say. It says portended in my career that I wanted to be the next Rachel nature boy or living legend. I wanted to be the first Shane Douglas and as naive as that sounds, I wanted to make my way industry, et cetera, et cetera.

00:45:14.75
Bradley Palermo
So like, yeah, John Cena did take that from him. That's interesting.

00:45:18.02
Aaron
Okay.

00:45:18.25
Bradley Palermo
Side note, you know,

00:45:18.86
Aaron
Yeah. Interesting for sure. um

00:45:21.71
Bradley Palermo
but yeah, we got the, we got the Joey styles. Did you just say that the Joey styles? Oh my God.

00:45:26.36
Aaron
Oh, no, I didn't. Yeah, that's that's right. That was this match.

00:45:29.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, cuz Shane Douglas goes out of the ring and over the railing, which I guess for Shane that was, you know, his size and his. He's not like an aerial guy. So he did that.

00:45:39.72
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:39.58
Bradley Palermo
And I guess that's the joy styles apparently does this in every ECW pay per view.

00:45:40.01
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:44.96
Bradley Palermo
So we finally got it at this point.

00:45:50.70
Aaron
Yep.

00:45:50.57
Bradley Palermo
Which is always fun.

00:45:51.14
Aaron
Classic. Classic.

00:45:51.76
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:45:52.28
Aaron
um Eventually the referee passes something to Shane Douglas. And i thought maybe it was brass knuckles at first. He punches cactus right in the face of it. And then you're like, Oh, they're handcuffs. So Shane Douglas handcuffs, cactus Jack's hands behind his back and starts hitting him with a chair right in the head. He takes a lot of chair shots in the head.

00:46:14.25
Aaron
And then,

00:46:14.12
Bradley Palermo
Have we seen Foley handcuffed and taking chair shots to the head before? I feel like it was a familiar scene.

00:46:20.04
Aaron
He does it in WWF later. i think it might be.

00:46:23.08
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yeah.

00:46:25.21
Aaron
it might have been in that Cactus Jack ah Triple H match that we watched, maybe.

00:46:30.68
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yeah. Cause I know he's seen, I know he's, it's a, it's a good image though. Like taking stiff chair shots right to the head with your hands behind your back.

00:46:38.04
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:39.37
Bradley Palermo
I mean, it's, it's fucking scary looking.

00:46:40.85
Aaron
It's pretty brutal. um and and And Shane Douglas takes grabs a microphone and he like basically turns it into an I quit match, which I thought was kind of interesting.

00:46:42.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:46:50.77
Aaron
He like tries to get Cactus to to give up and say he quits.

00:46:51.06
Bradley Palermo
yeah That is funny.

00:46:55.22
Aaron
and And every they put the microphone in front of Cactus's face. And the first thing he but he does is he calls out to Vince McMahon. It's like Vince. which I thought was really funny. But then he starts calling for Mikey whip rack.

00:47:09.50
Aaron
Cause I guess Mikey whip rack and he were a tag team, ah previously and cactus had betrayed Mikey. So after a few more chair shots to the head, Mikey does eventually come out while cactus is in like a submission that Shane Douglas has.

00:47:25.38
Aaron
And Mikey grabs a chair and he hits cactus in the head with it. And I got to tell you, That might have been the hardest chair shot to the head I have ever seen in my life.

00:47:36.06
Aaron
Like, holy shit, did he swing as hard as he could smack McFully right in the face.

00:47:36.58
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:47:44.25
Bradley Palermo
So Mick Foley would leave ecw a month from then to go to WWF. So did the crowd know that? Like with the Vince thing? Like what was...

00:47:53.24
Aaron
I think that he had already. Yeah, i'm I'm pretty sure that he had started weaving into his character that he was like a corporate shill or something. Right. Didn't didn't we watch? um

00:48:02.96
Bradley Palermo
right they had a they were trading a little bit of talent back and forth and they were kind of like weren't they calling them like monday night foley or some shit

00:48:10.64
Aaron
i don't remember that, but I think holiday didn't we watch? We watched holiday hell. Was that 95 holiday hell?

00:48:17.78
Bradley Palermo
yeah probably

00:48:21.56
Aaron
It might've been because i feel like he was doing the same shtick, like where he was like a corporate stooge for Eric Bischoff or Vince McMahon or something. So yeah, this, this was like a part of his character in ECW at the time, right before he had, he was leaving.

00:48:35.98
Bradley Palermo
Right. He's doing like anti-hardcore promos because he's like, I want the Olympics rules match. Okay.

00:48:41.86
Aaron
Yeah.

00:48:41.91
Bradley Palermo
i'm again i'm

00:48:42.34
Aaron
Yeah. I think the Olympic rules max.

00:48:42.99
Bradley Palermo
I'm getting all this now. yeah

00:48:44.74
Aaron
No, but I think that was, let me, let me see.

00:48:48.61
Aaron
Holiday Hell.

00:48:50.36
Bradley Palermo
Because in October of 1995, there's an ECW anti-hardcore promo. ah

00:48:57.70
Aaron
Is it 95? Yes. Holiday Hell 95 with Sabu Cactus Jack. We watched that.

00:49:02.93
Bradley Palermo
So that would have been right up before this. Yeah.

00:49:05.12
Aaron
Yeah, which makes total sense. So. Pretty funny. ah And yeah, craziest chair shot I've ever seen. 15 15 minute match. So like pretty good. You know, it's hard to not like a Mick Foley match because he's always going to do something stupid to himself or let something stupid be done to him.

00:49:27.57
Aaron
Yes, and now...

00:49:28.38
Bradley Palermo
Nothing's ever over.

00:49:29.60
Aaron
Now comes the main event, and this...

00:49:32.12
Bradley Palermo
oh wait, that was a three and one quarter star.

00:49:34.92
Aaron
Okay, yeah. All right.

00:49:35.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:49:41.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:43.37
Aaron
So our main event, this is where I got angry about the music. It was Raven, the ECW champion, with The Nest, his staple, versus the Sandman with Missy Hyatt in his corner.

00:49:53.76
Aaron
And if you know anything about ECW, you know that the Sandman walked out with ah with a kendo stick, a cigarette that was lit and several beers that he would drink and smash the cans into his head. And he would walk out to enter Sandman by Metallica and Sandman's music hits, but he doesn't show for like a minute or two, but it's not enter Sandman. Cause like I said before, and don't have the rights for enter Sandman. So we hear this terrible

00:50:19.11
Aaron
you know, enter Sandman sound alike song. And I just felt like every single like I was I was so upset. I said yet again, i must say.

00:50:29.49
Aaron
Every single Sandman entrance on video. is ruined forever because they overdubbed this terrible Enter the Sandman Soundalike song and you can never hear the real crowd's reaction. It's just very sad that this part of wrestling history was essentially erased from existence except for the only one that I've ever seen, which I sent to you, which is from ECW One Night Stand 2005.

00:50:55.85
Aaron
That's crazy to me that somebody was just like, meh, it's gone.

00:50:57.38
Bradley Palermo
There is.

00:50:59.56
Bradley Palermo
There's, um, I don't know how GCW does it, but when they do their WrestleMania offshoot matches around mania week, they, um,

00:51:11.20
Bradley Palermo
you know, they bring out a bunch of ECW guys all the time and shit, but they last year during Sabu's final match, um Sandman had a run in and they just the lights went dark and they played inner Sandman. Now, you know, this is not this is fucking old man Sandman.

00:51:35.81
Aaron
Yeah.

00:51:38.46
Bradley Palermo
And so it got to see it, uh, in modern times, by the way, Sandman is going to be there for mania week with GCW doing his final match again this year, but it's bullshit because his opponent is the invisible man.

00:51:53.94
Aaron
So he's just gonna wrestle nobody.

00:51:56.47
Bradley Palermo
The invisible man is pretending that you're wrestling someone like, like giving reactions and, and, um, what's it called? Um,

00:52:04.63
Aaron
taking bumps for a ghost.

00:52:06.40
Bradley Palermo
yeah it's taking bumps for a ghost for an invisible man i've seen i've seen some matches like you can if you're good you know you can make it look like well you've seen guys wrestle like blow up dolls and shit like that you can

00:52:17.26
Aaron
Yeah, and broomsticks.

00:52:18.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you can make it look like you just got DDT'd or whatever. Like, the Invisible Man is really is really getting you. but But you're like, this is his final match. Like, Sabu's final match was against Joey Janela.

00:52:29.98
Bradley Palermo
You know, and this is this match is going to be... The Sandman's final match going to Spring Break, which is um promoted by Joey Janela and GCW in partnership with one another. And...

00:52:49.36
Aaron
No, he's going obviously he's going to win, right? i don't know. It's weird. I don't know about that.

00:53:05.13
Bradley Palermo
But like Sandman can't wrestle for shit. I mean, he's all entrance. So, I mean, I guess that's all he needs to do is come out, do the entrance entrance and then get knocked out by the invisible man.

00:53:14.51
Aaron
Take a couple invisible bumps.

00:53:14.35
Bradley Palermo
And maybe.

00:53:16.26
Aaron
Yeah. And then that's all she wrote.

00:53:16.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:18.07
Aaron
I don't know what I will not be attending that, but if you go, i guess, enjoy it.

00:53:18.41
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:53:23.54
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:23.91
Bradley Palermo
I think i was tempted to go. I mean, it's almost sold out anyways. All that's left is GA, but I was considering it until I saw it was the invisible man. And now i'm I'm like, dude, I can't, I can't like, I don't fucking care.

00:53:37.59
Bradley Palermo
it would just sort of been, I mean, I guess i would be I could say that I was there for that entrance with enter Sandman and the whole crowd and stuff, but like, that would be it, right?

00:53:44.45
Aaron
Yeah.

00:53:46.92
Bradley Palermo
That's all you'd get out of that. So, um,

00:53:48.52
Aaron
Yeah. And, and, you know, I'm sure it's fun nowadays. It's I'm sure you still get the vibe of what it was like, but still crazy to me that that part of wrestling history is essentially just gone.

00:53:59.78
Bradley Palermo
erased yeah you know his entrance in this pay-per-view or whatever you want call it we just watched was like longer than almost any match in the pay-per-view it was like 15 fucking minutes for him to get to the ring yeah

00:54:10.12
Aaron
Right? Dude, it took forever. And then there's back and forth between the nest and Sandman and Missy. it's just like i I was like, how is there?

00:54:20.96
Aaron
i knew that the batch was less than 10 minutes and I was like, how is there 30 minutes left in this pay-per-view? Just like a ton of wasted time before the match starts.

00:54:29.81
Bradley Palermo
I was going to say, with the entrance, this thing probably definitely stretched past 20 minutes. But the match itself, it was a couple of minutes long.

00:54:34.83
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:37.42
Bradley Palermo
And it was, you know, a lot of it's like Missy and whoever the chick in the other corner was fighting. You know, they did, they called it a cat fight.

00:54:44.08
Aaron
ah She has an um an amazing name, the the woman in Raven's Flock. It's Kimono Wanalea.

00:54:51.58
Bradley Palermo
Komodo want to lift.

00:54:52.11
Aaron
So I guess, come on, I Wanalea is like...

00:54:54.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you know... Yeah, she's, you know, wearing shorts up her ass and like Raven, like, you know, obviously we would talk about him grunge, grungy flannel, flannel with a leather jacket grunge guy. He's sitting in the corner, sitting down in the corner with this girl.

00:55:10.91
Bradley Palermo
It kind of in his sort of positioned in his lap for the entire 15 minute entrance of Sandman. Just like whatever, man.

00:55:19.54
Aaron
Yeah, just chilling.

00:55:19.35
Bradley Palermo
You know, like he doesn't fucking. Yeah, just chilling for that whole fucking thing. But but yeah, once it gets going, i don't know. Every time Raven was trying to get a pin, the ref was conveniently gone and Raven's cheating and I don't know.

00:55:30.50
Aaron
It was just a messy match. You know, the Sandman matches are never pretty.

00:55:32.82
Bradley Palermo
Locker room interference. Yeah.

00:55:37.03
Aaron
We've said that before. Raven, to me, I think has always been pretty good, but this was this was kind of an ugly one. The ref got knocked out. the The nest interferes. um I think this one ended because Sandman was up on the top rope and was going to try to do a suplex maybe, but then Raven reversed it somehow and ended up getting Sandman to like slam his face right on an open chair that was set up in the ring.

00:56:03.48
Aaron
So pretty brutal ending.

00:56:03.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:56:05.98
Aaron
He gives him a DDT onto a chair for his troubles and then and then gets the pin. Raven retains.

00:56:10.68
Bradley Palermo
Raven. Yeah.

00:56:11.82
Aaron
But then it's not over, right? Because as as with everything, there's just more post-match stuff.

00:56:15.74
Bradley Palermo
It's never over. Yeah. Eventually, Sandman... Whatever. They all fucking fight more, but eventually Sandman gets up and gets some more cheers from the crowd, but...

00:56:27.14
Aaron
Hit some hit some people with with his cane and then he starts calling out for mommy.

00:56:29.66
Bradley Palermo
is

00:56:31.57
Aaron
I'm pretty sure he said mommy and he was talking about Missy Hyatt and I was like, oh boy.

00:56:33.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

00:56:38.24
Aaron
And that was it. It's over.

00:56:45.48
Bradley Palermo
Here at Grapple City Rewind, we have a three-tier rating system where Aaron and I each give our respective... ratings on the pay-per-view we watched this week fast forward being we didn't like it play being it was good and rewind being it was absolutely superb this particular pay-per-view was my call so i'll start with my rating i am going to go ahead and say it was cool to see a little surprise from brian pillman um

00:57:16.45
Bradley Palermo
I like to revisit the era, the graininess of the VHS tapes and stuff. There was like one, like, you know, special match, I guess, Sabu and Scorpio on this. But dude, overall, like this fucking thing just had, it was just way more bullshit than anything else. There was too many squashes. There was,

00:57:47.88
Bradley Palermo
I'm going to go ahead for the first time in a while and low on this one to fast forward rating. What say you, Aaron? Aaron?

00:57:56.11
Aaron
Uh, I mean, there are some cool things, like you said. Too Cold Scorpio versus Sabu was good. Shane Douglas versus Cactus Jack was good.

00:58:05.82
Aaron
The Brian Pillman stuff was interesting. ah But you can just watch all that on its own. i don't think you have to sit through this two and a half hour pay-per-view. And, you know, ECW always talks about how it was like the punk rock of wrestling.

00:58:30.75
Aaron
But, you know, this is going to be a fast forward for me as well. Just just watch the good things on their own. You can let this one stay where it needs to stay in history and and move on.

00:58:47.81
Bradley Palermo
And we always love to hear from you out there, the grapple gang. You can always reach out to us via telephone and leave a message on our Google voice line. Don't worry. We will not pick up. it will not be an awkward conversation. You can cut a promo on Aaron, cut a promo on me, ask us anything, ask us our opinions on anything you like wrestling wise, or tell us what we were right or wrong about what but we should watch in the future.

00:59:13.86
Bradley Palermo
have at it. Call that line.

00:59:47.92
Bradley Palermo
At one point, Brad said, we can't top the Attitude Era, right? But then 10 minutes later, you're both basically saying the show is... Pupa and fodder.

00:59:57.60
Bradley Palermo
Pupa and fodder. And, you know, just something to get through to, to get through until the main event. And Aaron straight up said, fast forward, just watch the opener and the main event. here's my question. If a pay-per-view needs one all-time classic match to save it, is it actually a good show?

01:00:16.58
Bradley Palermo
Are we grading these on vibe, the signs, the crowd, the chaos? And the fact that it feels like a certain era, are we grading the wrestling? Cause you basically described it as a good opener, legendary main event, and then a whole lot of whatever. So what matters more for a rewind rating?

01:00:32.78
Bradley Palermo
ah A show that sold, he goes on a show that sold the whole way through, but never hits a 10 out of ah show that kind of boring for two hours and ends with something insane, like fully going through a cage.

01:00:54.14
Bradley Palermo
Sorry. I could have probably stopped a few lines before that, but what was the first question?

01:00:57.60
Aaron
No, that's fine. No, I appreciate all the context.

01:00:58.79
Bradley Palermo
Um,

01:01:01.39
Aaron
um I think the answer to his question is, for me at least, it's kind of a little bit of both. You know, if if the vibe is enough to carry me through, ah you know, a 10-match card where two or three matches are really good and the others aren't, like, I think that's fine. You know, don't...

01:01:21.20
Aaron
i don't i i do I do personally like in-ring a lot. It's something that my fandom... It's a big part of my fandom, and that's not to say that I don't like matches that are not as impressive in the ring, but I think for me, i will probably favor...

01:01:40.76
Aaron
the actual content of the match over a vibe. But if the vibe is really strong, and like it'll make an OK match into a better match.

01:01:45.80
Bradley Palermo
Right.

01:01:51.53
Aaron
You know what I mean? We've watched ones where I was like, eh, you know, I didn't really love the match, but the crowd loved the match. And so therefore I enjoyed it more.

01:02:01.82
Aaron
so Yeah, I don't know how concise of an answer that is. But but for me, I think it's a bit of both. It's about the time and the place. But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to give every Attitude Era pay-per-view like a glowing review, right? it It needs to grab me and hold on to me and maintain my attention for it its runtime. So yeah.

01:02:22.07
Bradley Palermo
I think that ah for me, I'm like rating it on the whole of the pay-per-view because we're we're not just watching matches. We're watching pay-per-views, right?

01:02:31.52
Bradley Palermo
Like classic pay-per-views or whole pay-per-views.

01:02:32.24
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. yeah

01:02:33.84
Bradley Palermo
So like, the main event is important it has more weight than a mid card match like if if the mid card's great and the main event sucks like a lot of these wcw ones it does it does bring the rating down but it but if the but but it doesn't bring it all the way down right it's like well some of this stuff is like a solid like play rating because because it had like you know, Rey Mysterio doing something insane in it. But then it's like, it's, but it's not a rewind because at the end, like Hogan just, you know, walked around with this thumb up his ass for, for 10 minutes and then there was no decision or whatever. So, I mean, I think both things kind of matter, but as far as nostalgia goes, that usually doesn't carry it alone for me. Like I was in the hardware store today getting a key made and a super retro, like Gen X or dudes that, that run the place and,

01:03:25.93
Aaron
okay ahha

01:03:27.96
Bradley Palermo
And I'm wearing my Sheik shirt and he was like, oh shit, like fucking cool. That's back when it was good. And I wanted to tell him like, actually watch a lot of ah wrestling.

01:03:43.91
Aaron
That was good. Yeah.

01:03:45.43
Bradley Palermo
but that era, like he was like, Sergeant Slaughter too. And I'm like, yeah, that era was like a lot of like cartoony bullshit. Like a lot of those pay-per-views are not, I'm not saying chic versus Hogan or whatever isn't like a good rivalry.

01:03:56.08
Aaron
Yeah, no, it's just

01:03:57.66
Bradley Palermo
I'm just saying like, it's fucking good now. I mean, modern wrestling is probably entering, entering, you know, and story-wise better than than any of this shit, you know?

01:04:00.72
Aaron
right.

01:04:08.06
Bradley Palermo
that it's it's It's actually even AEW and they say there's no story. aw is it's got a lot more story than some of this bischoff stuff anyways i'm going on a tangent but but yes

01:04:44.53
Aaron
in that place in time, but then also looking back on it, knowing what I know now it's, it's a, you know, it's a delicate balance. I don't think I do it perfectly every time. I certainly am not a perfect person.

01:04:54.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:04:55.29
Aaron
So it's just my goal, right? Is like, try to try to go back in time. If it's something that I feel like I would have connected with, or I actually did connect with when I was younger, but then also kind of do a little comparison of today, right?

01:05:09.41
Aaron
Like, you know, you can't beat the bloodline like three and a half years that, that like made so many people made Cody roads, brought the rock back in like that thing, that story might be the best long-term story besides like a dusty flair that we've ever seen.

01:05:25.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:05:28.11
Aaron
It's but but but it is subjective, right? Like, it's different. It's a lot different now. A lot of it stayed the same, but it's a lot different now. And so we I just try to have as much fun as I can when I'm watching. i view it critically.

01:05:41.42
Aaron
i try to think about its place in history, but I also think about how it compares to certain things from today. So, you know, it's a mixed bag.

01:05:48.79
Bradley Palermo
Hell yeah. Thanks, Mike. Mike in Pasadena. And hope to hear from more of you guys out there. Again, that's 66-657-SLAM or feel free to send us an email. All that information is going to be um in the description below on whatever platform you're listening to. And make sure you leave us a review too. we it helps us get the word out there. and We do appreciate those. been seeing come some come through. Aaron, this last...

01:06:15.09
Bradley Palermo
Pay-per-view is my call. Have you thought about what you want us to watch for the next episode?

01:06:20.84
Aaron
I have. i I was disappointed by this one, so i decided that I was going to pick... try to pick a banger.

01:06:30.73
Aaron
We're, we're about to be in the month of March.

01:06:30.42
Bradley Palermo
Okay, cool.

01:06:33.67
Aaron
Uh, so I found, thank you, Rick. I found out that there were some WrestleManias in March. We are in WrestleMania season.

01:06:42.13
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.

01:06:43.73
Aaron
going going to watch WrestleMania 18 from March 20 sorry, March 17th of that year.

01:06:48.03
Bradley Palermo
eighteen 18.

01:06:49.84
Aaron
And, of that year

01:06:53.14
Bradley Palermo
Dang.

01:06:53.92
Aaron
and

01:06:53.84
Bradley Palermo
That's a good one, I think.

01:06:56.06
Aaron
It's one of the best ones, a lot of people would say.

01:06:58.28
Bradley Palermo
Some people say it is the best, right?

01:07:00.43
Aaron
Some people do say that it is the best. 17 is also very good, too. i think it's usually a conversation between this one and 17.

01:07:11.66
Aaron
Highlights of this one.

01:07:11.29
Bradley Palermo
We do have Hogan, but

01:07:13.42
Aaron
Yes. No, but but this is the this is Hogan's greatest match of all time.

01:07:18.28
Bradley Palermo
oh wow.

01:07:18.93
Aaron
Hulk Hogan against The Rock. And it's not because of anything that they necessarily do in the ring.

01:07:20.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:07:23.62
Aaron
Like the physical match stuff is good, it's about the crowd. um

01:07:27.54
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:07:28.45
Aaron
So yeah, we get Rock versus Hogan, Triple H versus Jericho, Stone Cold versus Scott Hall, Undertaker, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle versus Kane, DDP versus Christian, RVD, William Regal, this thing...

01:07:41.38
Bradley Palermo
It's stacked.

01:07:42.54
Aaron
is stacked for sure. ah And it's in Canada. It was at the at the Sky Dome in Toronto and there were almost 70,000 people there. so this is a hell of a show.

01:07:57.32
Bradley Palermo
Wow. That's funny. Spike Dudley and Hulk Hogan on the same fucking match card.

01:08:03.32
Aaron
ah Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:04.34
Bradley Palermo
yeah

01:08:06.52
Aaron
This is 2002 was the year.

01:08:06.62
Bradley Palermo
I mean...

01:08:09.46
Aaron
Sorry, I didn't want to get it wrong. March 17th of 2002. Icon versus Icon. So some people say that that Rock and Hogan is the greatest WrestleMania match of all time.

01:08:23.00
Aaron
And it's kind of hard to... disagree when you watch it and when you it loud enough to hear the crowd, because the crowd is potentially the most raucous I've ever heard a crowd in my life.

01:08:45.84
Bradley Palermo
Did you have you watched the Smashing Machine? Side side question, side note.

01:08:49.93
Aaron
Yes, I did.

01:08:51.04
Bradley Palermo
I watched that the other day. it was like the first half. I was like, this might be really good. I like the rocks acting. i don't think i've ever, I don't, and know I don't watch Moana and stuff. So I haven't really seen him act outside of WWF, whatever.

01:09:03.15
Bradley Palermo
But, but then it's.

01:09:03.70
Aaron
I think this is his first like first real dramatic role where it's not like he's playing an action star and there's a bit of drama, you know?

01:09:10.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it seemed cool. And then it was like, and it didn't really go anywhere. I'm like, this guy's story kind of sucks. Yeah. Like if you would have died or fucking, or it's like his drug addiction didn't seem that maybe I shouldn't be spoiling it, but um spoiler alert, if you haven't watched it, um his drug addiction didn't seem that bad.

01:09:16.42
Aaron
it it he

01:09:28.52
Bradley Palermo
His, his, his awful relationship didn't seem that awful. His rivalry with his friend didn't seem that heated his, His winning streak didn't seem that long. His like comeback didn't seem that grandiose. I was like, don't know. It's like he had all the elements, like a good filmmaker and like The Rock was doing a good job, but it didn't seem like they actually had like a a good enough story for me, like a unique enough story.

01:09:53.11
Aaron
There just wasn't a really solid through line. It was essentially like a slice of life movie where the slice was a year or two, you know, um feel like you didn't really get to see a lot of the stuff around the edges.

01:10:02.92
Bradley Palermo
and um Yeah. Yeah. They are. Yeah.

01:10:09.66
Aaron
I think that the best part of the movie drama. The Rocks acting for sure. And, and Emily Blunt too. They're both really good in it, but yeah, you're totally right.

01:10:17.50
Bradley Palermo
are yeah

01:10:19.43
Aaron
The movie itself is just kind of okay. Like it was interesting to me. And I think that there, there were some, some good threads that they could have pulled out a little harder, but it just, it felt like it was trying to do too much in the amount of time that, that it went, that it, that it ran.

01:10:35.00
Bradley Palermo
Right.

01:10:37.76
Aaron
yeah,

01:10:37.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's like narrow it down. i was thinking there was going to be some big like sort of statement and it was kind of just because, you know, we watch a lot of these like

01:10:45.82
Bradley Palermo
autobiography or biographical biopics and they all kind of have similar formulas, but some people's stories just, they can really hit like, they can really drive it home with something, some statement.

01:10:58.06
Aaron
Yeah.

01:10:58.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And like, like you said, like the through line can be paid off, but this was just kind of like, and now he is here. He is today at the grocery store. was like, Oh, all right, whatever.

01:11:07.14
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, i i enjoyed it. i don't, um it wasn't one of my favorite films of award season this past year, but it was good.

01:11:15.40
Bradley Palermo
yeah he did a good job i mean it was cool to see him not play the rock it was that was interesting he we played kind of a don't know kind of a teddy bear sort of guy you know he was he was a beast and he was scary but his vocal delivery was totally different than the rock it almost sounded like he was canadian or something he was just just a nice like kind of bouncy tone to his voice

01:11:16.15
Aaron
um It just wasn't great.

01:11:21.61
Aaron
Yeah. I,

01:11:31.97
Aaron
Yeah. the yeah the The character work and the acting is, is the best part of the movie for sure.

01:11:42.14
Aaron
There are, it's really hard for me to watch a movie with Dwayne Johnson in it and not see the rock, but there are times where based on his performance and the stuff that they did to his face to make him look more like Mark Kerr, where

01:11:42.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:11:49.87
Bradley Palermo
right

01:11:58.03
Aaron
I genuinely didn't remember that it was him. And it's, it's hard to do that with a guy who's so recognizable.

01:12:01.36
Bradley Palermo
yeah

01:12:04.21
Aaron
So like, for that reason, it is worth watching. It's just like, don't get your hopes up. You know, like my, my favorite movie last year was sinners.

01:12:09.79
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:12:12.59
Aaron
And like, you can't, it's, it's hard to be as good as that movie. Cause that was just so innovative and creative and like had something to say, you know, yeah,

01:12:18.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was unique. Right. Yeah.

01:12:22.13
Aaron
But Smashing Machine was okay. I didn't dislike it.

01:12:25.88
Bradley Palermo
Cool. Well, yeah, I'm glad we randomly stumbled across that conversation. that's all That is all the time we have for today, folks. It's always fun to talk about wrestling. Keep an eye. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so we can so you don't miss an episode when that alert pops up in a week or so.

01:12:43.70
Aaron
All right, we'll catch you in the cheap seats. Adios.

01:12:46.80
Bradley Palermo
Adios.