Time Pals
The Time Pals are geek dads with bad takes on every facet of retro pop culture. Releasing episodes twice a month, the Time Pals topics range from retro video games, nostalgic movies, classic toys, and vintage comic books. But never pro-wrestling.
...Okay, sometimes pro-wrestling.
Time Pals
Time Pals Minis: Botch to the Future
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This week, Time Pals co-host ShadoSpartan brings back Mini-Episodes and takes hilarious dive into the world of pro wrestling botches — from debut disasters to matches that went completely off the rails.
Fellow Time Pal Underscore and Special guest Twitch streamer MrBortman (twitch.tv/mrbortmanttv) cover the infamous Sting vs. Jeff Hardy meltdown, Ted Dibiase Jr iconic excuses, the Thanksgiving fever dream known as The Gobbledy Gooker, and much more!
Join us as we react, relive, and roast the madness of our fair sport.
#TimePalsPodcast #ProWrestling #WrestlingBotches #Botchamania #Sting #JeffHardy #GobbledyGooker #NXT #NXTShowdown2025 #WWE #TNA #AEW #WrestlingFails #IndieWrestling #WrestlingCommunity #TedDibiaseJr ##MaydayMediaNetwork #Twitch #TwitchStreamer #MrBortman #MaydayMediaNetwork #GeekCast #DadCast #StoneCold #SteveAustin #OwenHart |
Recording whenever you want to start dumping like this.
SPEAKER_04Okay, let me take a sip of the mitten brewing co. Peanuts and Cracker Jack flavored.
SPEAKER_02What the fuck are you drinking? What is that? Nickel has coconut tea, roasted coconut tea. I think I would rather drink that than Cracker Jack alcohol.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it sounds like baseball beer. It does. It does sound like it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02It's a little too on the nose. If this were like a movie, I would be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Or just something normal.
SPEAKER_04Because for my birthday party, and some of the guys brought different kinds of beers.
SPEAKER_02Can you I see it? Hold it up.
SPEAKER_04Turbo Reaper IPA. Oh my god. Yeah. Well, in today's episode, we're going to be surprising, talking about wrestling put on by me, yours truly, Shadow Spartan. And I just thought it would be hilarious to talk about some of our favorite botches in any form of wrestling. Doesn't have to be WWE, but it could be anybody. As soon as Mike gets back, we will jump right into it. Kids, man. So glad I don't have any kids. I don't have to worry about them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, vice versa. You know, I uh I I like my my brother's kids a lot, and uh that's that's probably good enough for me. Not that I don't have probably kids I don't know about somewhere in the somewhere in the world. Yeah, it's it's quite possible, but um, you know, I'll start a sitcom if that ever if that ever brings that the light of date, you know.
SPEAKER_04I remember what was it, my uncle who like lived in Alaska for like years or something, he came to visit and we did like a search or something of some lost family member or something, and like a bunch of divorced wives were like popping up on his profile or something, and we're just like either he got married a bunch of times and divorced a bunch of times, and we don't know anything about that, but somehow it was popping up in his system. It was like, damn, he was a busy guy, you know, ladies' man. But yeah, I gave a nice little intro, Mike, and we were just waiting for you to come back. And now that he's distracted again, as kids do. Yeah, but uh let's see, Brett, or I should say, do you watch any NXT at all?
SPEAKER_03I do not watch any NXT that much these days. Yeah. Okay, okay. I haven't really watched that much since since uh Shawn Michaels took over. And that's not a knock on Shawn Michaels, it's just um I think it kind of got rebranded weird, and then I just kind of I I I stopped watching too much to where now I don't know who anybody is, except for like The Rock's daughter, and then the people that have come over from AEW, like Ricky Starks and um um Evan, uh what's his name? Evan he used to be in AEW as well. I think he's the NXT champion right now, or he was the NXT champion, Evan something. Mike would know.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure he would know, but yeah. But did you hear about their recent controversy with their pay-per-view? No, I did not. Okay. So I thought we'd start this whole botchamania type thing off with uh NXT. I I guess we could say this is like the most recent, and you could say high profile botch. So I guess they had an upcoming, or I guess it was last month, was their pay-per-view. Originally they named it uh Invasion, and it was going to uh happen on October 7th. Do you happen to know what happened on October 7th a couple years ago?
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, it's the uh indie version of 9-11th.
SPEAKER_04Well, you're you're kind of close close in terms of on October 7th were a series of attacks, I should say coordinated attacks, armed incursions from the Gaza Strip back in uh 2023, and they happened on October 7th. So, yeah, kind of really bad for NXT to name it invasion. Oh, thank god October 7th.
SPEAKER_03For a second there, I thought you were gonna go on October 7th, January 6th happened. That's right.
SPEAKER_04No, but then they had to like quickly you know come up with something else. And this was just kind of like me when I looked at the new title, it was for um NXT and the logo, it says showdown, but when you look at it, it looks like showdow 2. And when you when you look at them and see showdown, like the W is a big red letter. But when I looked at it, I'm like, it looks like Showdown. But that's that's supposed to be an N at the end.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it totally does, right?
SPEAKER_04Okay, I want to make sure I wasn't the only one. It totally does.
SPEAKER_03No, it does.
SPEAKER_04I thought that was like a double botch, like whoever designed that. It almost sounds like uh, was it Godzilla, the newer one? Godzilla minus one. Minus one. They just announced sequel is Godzilla minus zero.
SPEAKER_02You can't even remember Godzilla minus two, then becomes a math problem, and we're not very good at that. Right. Naked gun 33 and a third one. Not to get off topic because I know we've only got 30 fucking minutes, but Naked Gun 33 and the third original title was Naked Gun 4, which I wanted so bad. Just oh my god.
SPEAKER_03Just uh on lifetime of people going, what happened to the third one? Instead of what happened to the 30, the 32 ones before it.
SPEAKER_04Okay, if you guys got a favorite bot you want to mention, or you just take turns.
SPEAKER_02So when this idea got pitched originally, not surprisingly, me, the former actual training pro wrestler, immediately said, absolutely not I hate wrestling, we will never do this again ever again. And I meant it, goddamn it, and then Dom said, We're doing it. I went fucking time for life, right?
SPEAKER_04Time said, Yes, sir. Yeah, we're doing time penalty. You gotta have at least one wrestling episode.
SPEAKER_02Fucking it. Exactly. Exactly. So I don't really like to talk about botches in general, because like when we go I'm done doing matches and stuff like that, like small miscues and mistakes happen all the time. Um so usually, usually they get moved on, and then like the only people who really care about the small stuff are marks, but there's always gonna be like absolute shit show moments that become infamous. So for my first choice, I'm picking an entire match, which is basically a mistake due to one wrestler being at his lowest point. And you can sum it up by just saying my choice is Sting versus Jeff Hardy, TNA 2011 Victory Road. Do you know this at all, Dom?
SPEAKER_04Jeff Hardy and Sting. I think I know which one you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02It was it was very famous for a hot minute, but essentially Bortman and I, being experts, I know, know the history of Jeff Hardy and Sting. So if you don't know, Jeff Hardy has fought sobriety for a very long time. Sting, born again, Christian, right? Very, very stand-up guy, very straight laced. Everybody's hero if you love WCW.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he only fought sobriety when he wore red paint. Exactly. He was hanging out with Kevin Nash and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Kevin Nash affects everybody. You know what I mean? Everybody thinks Razor is the bad influence. No, no, no, no, no. Your dad says I don't like that Nash guy. But in any case, main event Sting versus Jeff Hardy for the TNA world title, right? On paper, it's gold. You've got the legend, the icon, Sting, acing off against one of the most charismatic and unpredictable guys of his generation, Jeff Hardy. As you probably know, Jeff is a show stealing icon, can do whatever he wants. He will make somebody like Sting, who even back then people were saying was too old to do this anymore. He can bump and make himself look amazing, right? Jeff Hardy's music hits first, and immediately, immediately, everybody knows something's wrong. So Jeff Hardy, if you remember his entrances, super fast, super energetic. Jeff Hardy even in TNA had a song that he sung himself because he's part of a shitty band like Keanu. And he does the whole thing. Jeff Hardy is the Hollywood vampires of pro wrestling. I'll just put it that way. Um, stumbles out of the ramp, sunglasses on, slow moving, eyes glazed. The crowd is hyped because it's dark outside, because it's dark inside. Everything you're seeing though through the camera, he is out, he's out of his mind. He's fucking space balls. And then you hear this the crowd start to silently like not know what to do. Jeff is mouthing words to his song. He's basically like forgetting where he's at. And instead of the high energy guy, he is moving like he is falling asleep. You're going to see him like sachet with his shoulders, and he goes, Wait, no, I'm like heal. That's right, I can't do that. I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna chew gum and I'm gonna high-five the hands, and he's gonna forget again, I am a bad guy in this. I'm not supposed to high-five anybody. So, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna high-five someone to go, oh shit, that's right, and push him away.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then as he's walking up the ramp, he's going to just be like, Okay, in the ring, very slow. He is on a bunch of painkillers, he's at the bottom, you name it, man. All these all these depressants. He's he can barely make it to the ring. Um, and he just starts, he stalls for time, and Sting finally comes down, right? Sting's great, looks amazing as always, walks to the ring and he gets inside, and everybody just waits. And they wait and they watch, and nothing happens at all. And the crowd is starting to understand that something is kind of probably wrong. And then out comes Eric Bischoff, headset, clipboard, and he walks right down to the ring like a madman, runs inside. Bischoff grabs a microphone and he says to the crowd, we're changing the rules. It's now no disqualification. What he's really doing, though, is he's doing that classic, I'm gonna say something, I'm gonna whisper in the ear of one guy, I'm gonna say something, I'm gonna lean in and whisper in the other guy. What's happening is he's basically telling Sting, hey, Hardy is too fucked up. You're going to die if we let this shit go down. Cameras can't hide it, fans can see everything, bell rings.
SPEAKER_04Go ahead. It's it's just that obvious that he's just like and it's not like Sting didn't know.
SPEAKER_03You could tell by the look on Sting's face the whole time that Sting knows that he's gonna be like, Yeah, Sting knows.
SPEAKER_02Sting knows, and I have a feeling that he probably thinks, well, maybe we can get a match going. And when once Eric gets in there, he's like, Oh no, we're done. We're you have no clue.
SPEAKER_04Eric told him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we are done. Basically, he did the classic, like, you're going to pin him for real. You know what I mean? Sting looks heartbroken, Hardy takes off his shirt, still staggering, and then Sting goes for one Scorpion death death drop. Sting covers him. You can see Sting hold Hardy down as hard as he can. Sting's a big ass.
SPEAKER_04So he can't kick out. Can't kick out.
SPEAKER_03And Hardy was trying to, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hardy is trying his hardest. He's the turtle on his back with the little legs flailing. You can tell he's trying his best. No clue where he is. 90 seconds, ends this $40 pay-per-view match. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04I would be pissed too if I went there to pay for that. Like that's the main event.
SPEAKER_02The crowd loses their fucking minds. Chance, this is bullshit, right? Fills the impact zone. What's underscore doing in the impact zone? Anyway, anyway. Chance, this is bullshit. Sting looks at the fans, looks completely disgusted, and he says, out of character, I agree. That Sing doesn't do that shit. You know what I mean? Sing does not do that shit. Sing is a professional to the T. The fans chanting this is bullshit made Sting go, You're fucking right. This was this was dumb. This was stupid. Hardy is sent home, he gets suspended. TNA orders refunds for everybody who ordered the show. Victory Road 2011 goes down history as one of the most worst main events in wrestling history. It's involving legends. You know what I mean? Involving legends. I think there was a YouTube comment when I was re-re-watching it because it's only 10 minutes long. I do suggest it. 10 minutes with the entrances, by the way. So, like, um, so somebody in the YouTube comment said that Singh's face after the pin is like a father finding out his son does drugs. Disappointed dad of all disappointed dads. Yeah, to beaver couldn't film that shit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that moment was really the death nail in TNA's coffin, you know. Because uh they were it was definitely up there.
SPEAKER_02It there is an element, not these aren't botches, but there was an element toward the end where Hogan basically did the old like put the company on my back, you know, put the company on my back, dude. Like that kind of shit. It's fucking worked for me, brother. Right, yeah, exactly. He does he did that, and that there was there's a famous final shot of Hogan where uh Dixie Carter, the actual owner, is holding on to Hogan's leg as Hogan is trying to walk away down the ramp. It is embarrassing as shit.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I almost forgot about that. It's embarrassing as shit. That's great.
SPEAKER_04There you go. Another one for a spritz.
SPEAKER_03I sure do. I'm gonna go with the the classic. So uh me and Mikey were talking about just playing botches. I mean, it's hard to like make a big story on just botches, which is why he kind of went with the hardy botch match. So I'm going with a botched angle, probably one of the more popular botched angles of all time, which is the gobbledygooker. Yes. Do you remember the gobbledygooker? Oh, Dom is young. I I don't know anything about it. So in uh 1990, in like September, late September of 1990, uh WWF at the time started bringing out this giant egg and started going, like, what's in the egg? What's gonna happen? You know, like this at some point, is there something special that's gonna come out of this egg? And put it started putting all this publicity into this egg. So for the next month and a half, they had people, they had all the wrestlers guessing, they had celebrities guessing, they would bring kids out at at uh, you know, at the uh Sunday night, uh Sunday Superstars, you know, TV tapings and be like, what do you think's in there? And you know, they got kids like, I think it's Mickey, you know, and I guess like it got really within the backstage was like people were even like uh going big names. Like I guess Pat Patterson, who was uh, you know, who was a you know rest hall of fame wrestler. I think he was the was Pat Patterson the first intercontinental champion, Mike, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so he that even Pat Patterson said like Vince was keeping it secret from everyone. So Pat Patterson is on record going, I thought it was gonna be Ric Flair, because Rick Flair hadn't debuted in WWF yet, and he would he had just left. Incon Mundy was one of the big guesses too. Yep. Um so uh there was a lot of stuff, speculation going on. Um then the big I should I say what hatched the egg or should I say the big rumor first? Say the rumor first. So the big rumor is the Undertaker, this is before he was the Undertaker, uh, Mark Callaway, who was to just got fired from WCW or quit WCW as mean Mark Callis. So he had just left and he had just had an appointment with uh Vince McMahon, who says, Yeah, we've got a you know, we've got a character for you. We just have to, you know, iron out the details and I'll call you. So I guess Undertaker, you know, is at home going like, what's my character gonna be? And he starts seeing this egg. And I guess there's a rumor that caught that got to Undertaker that he was going to be the egg man. They like Sonic the Hedgehog, pre-Sonic the Hedgehog. Well, like he they said, like, I don't I think this rumor, I don't know how this rumor got to him through Bruce Pritchard or Paul Heyman or something, that they were gonna make him shave his head and shave his eyebrows off, and he was gonna be the egg man. And uh I think McFoley summed it up best. McFoley's theory is that they saw him and said, This we can't make this guy an egg man. He's he's he can be something else. Like there's we can do better than Eggman. And so Vince McMahon had the Undertaker character already, and he had been kind of tooling with it and went, you know what? Never mind. This guy, I think, would be better. I think this guy would could be my undertaker, you know. So the theory is that they had this Eggman character for Mark Callaway, but they scrapped it when they started talking with him, and that the what came out of the egg was just a was just a a filler for the original idea they had. That's that's that's one of the theories. It's like they were like, well, fuck, what are we gonna do with this egg now? Now that we're not doing the egg man anymore. So they filled it with this thing that hatched instead. So that's that's an that's one theory. Um, but I'll so I'll I'll go ahead and I'll just tell you what happened. So at Survivor Series 1990 in November, so the egg starts to crack in the and at the start of the uh the pay-per-view, and then by two or three matches in, it starts to crack all the way, and so Mean Gene goes out there and goes, I think the egg is gonna blow. And the egg cracks open, and out from the egg jumps a giant uh turkey. It's a man, it's a man in a giant turkey costume. And everyone was like, Whoa, what?
SPEAKER_02Okay, whose theme song is turkey in the straw? Because we had to sledgehammer the fact that it's a fucking living turkey wrestler.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the turkey jumps out, walks over to Mean Jean and goes, What are you doing here? And the turkey literally gobbles, goes, and for some reason, Mean Jean can understand the gobbly. Of course, he says, What do you mean? Don't tell me he's like, What did you say? You're you're the gobbly gooker.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02I understand you.
SPEAKER_03So then the gobbledygooker and mean Gene Okerlin go to the ring and start crisscrossing with each other, crisscrossing the ropes and doing flips and stuff. And it's it's one of the biggest botch characters of all time because it's like nobody really gave a shit from the get-go. I think the audience kind of went like the kids in the audience are like, oh, that's kind of cool. And then it just, I really just died right there. Uh the funny thing is, the person in the gobbledygooker suit is actually was actually Hector Guerrero, who's Eddie Guerrero's brother. And he's actually a phenomenal wrestler, which just is baffling to me that you give a character that has nothing going for it.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god. This is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03And you gave it to a phenomenal wrestler who could put on like a classic match, you know? Hector Guerrero. I mean, the Guerrero family. Yeah. This is Gory Guerrero's son, you know?
SPEAKER_02But yeah, no, it it's one of those situations where uh I read somewhere, I think it might have been Wiki, but the person who suggested Hector Guerrero, who you could have made money with, uh, was Dusty Rhodes. Dusty Rhodes, yeah, Dusty Rhodes. Like said, I've got just the wrestler for you.
SPEAKER_03I don't do the Dusty impression, but yeah, yeah, I just got just the wrestler who will make a great gabble guoker for you. Famous is all a basical, baby. You could call him uh he's an American dream, baby. He's a Hispanic American dream. Oh, God. Yeah, and then the the theory, the Undertaker Eggman theory also has more credit because guess who went on to debut that night at Survivor Series 1990 was the debut of The Undertaker. The Undertaker.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it lines up. So you go, now when when uh Vince McMahon was asked about this whole angle, Vince McMahon claims he wanted a mascot that could appeal to the kids that were fans. And uh his idea was pretty much lifted from the San Diego chicken. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the San Diego chicken debuted. Uh San Diego chicken debuted in uh 1971, and then I guess there was some kind of scandal with the guy who was in the mascot suit, and he re-debuted in 1979 by cracking out of a giant egg. Wow. So it is a full-on ripoff of the San Diego chicken. Yeah. Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_02To be fair, it's sort of the Phoenix Suns gorilla. I don't, I think it's just a thing.
SPEAKER_03Uh how how the Gobbly Googre ended was that uh uh at Madison Square Garden, they went, yeah, Gobbly Googre had a match. He went out first, and they had it was their idea to like put all the lights out in the Madison Square Garden and shine one big light on the Gobbly Googre as he was going to the ring. And I guess the only way that Hector Guerrero could see out of the mask were two tiny eye holes right in the front of the eyeballs. Oh, and now those the holes were blinded by this one light that was shining him in the eye. So he literally could not see. He literally they see he said he had to keep putting his hands on the ground to know which direction he was walking. Oh, the guy now. Yeah, and then he said he ripped his shin going up the steps on the The steel steps. And then when he went to flip into the ring, he didn't he couldn't tell where he was, and he fell right on his ass when he flipped into the ring. So then he, yeah, he wrestled the match and he came back and he said Vince was just standing there and just looked at him and shook his head. But not really like, How could you, Hector? But more like, Man, what have I done? You know, right? What have I done? And so Hector Garrow is like, I knew that was my last match at WWF. Like Vince was like, Man, I really like he would never admit it, but he was like, Man, I really fucked this one out.
SPEAKER_02And still more dusty said to himself, Whoo I'm glad I never have to do something embarrassing ever again.
SPEAKER_03Like And then one day we'll get to the shockmaster.
SPEAKER_04But I'm sure everyone knows that story by now. You know, I've seen the video plenty of times, even I know about it. Normally, I was trying to stay away from people that get hurt for a botch, but this one was too funny. I thought this one actually comes from Chris Jericho, a ladder match at Unforgiven 2004 against Christian. I don't know. Can can I share this on the what's gonna happen is uh Christian's gonna push the ladder and then watch where Jericho lands. He he his tailbone hits the edge of that ladder, and you can see he is in immense pain. That is he is not overselling that he is in so much pain.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god. Poor Jericho, man.
SPEAKER_04And then they show replay from two different angles. So, I mean, not a intended botch, but I mean you feel for the guy where you're just like, damn, how how do you pre-plan, like, oh yeah, and then I'm gonna fall and then you know be safe, but then that that thing kind of happens.
SPEAKER_03Oh that is a brutal botch.
SPEAKER_04So I wanted to bring this up because specifically botch mania, shout out to Matthew. Oh botch mania. Hopefully, you know, he happens to find this channel or someone could share it to him so if we could be featured in his next video. Hello, Matthew! So I wanted to mention it because the episode that he had this on, I forget who it was was reading from Chris Jericho's book on this botch. Um, in his book, he actually described that or how he described the pain was like getting raped by Robocop. More or less, that's all you need to think of it. But I think the best part is after the match, when he went to go see a doctor to get it checked out, he asked the doctor, like, you know, what could you do for me, you know, to help with this? And the doctor just put his arms up and just said, What do you want me to do? Put a cast on it? Yes. Basically, the doctor's like, nothing can do about it, just gotta give it time to heal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04Damn.
SPEAKER_03Actually, a really funny uh match botch with Jericho, my favorite, is um the one where um uh what's his name? Neville. What is his name? Pac? Yeah, is that his name in AEW or wherever he is now? Is when Andrew Neville broke his broke his ankle in the middle of a match. The referee didn't realize it. So and Jericho's like, so he's he goes to Neville's like, are you all right? He's like, No, man, I think I just broke my ankle. So he gets up and tells the referee, like, you need to call the match off. And the referee's like, Well, I'm not gonna do that because he thinks Jericho is still playing the heel character. So he's like, No, man, he's hurt. You need to call the match off. And he's like, No, man, he's like, No, you gotta do it. And he's so he's like, so he goes, I I so I realized he's not understanding me. So I decided I'm just gonna try to get myself disqualified on purpose. So I pushed him and said, Fuck you. And to my surprise, the referee, I forgot his name, pushed me back and said, Fuck you. And so I pushed him again, and you could see it. There's a clip of it of them just pushing each other over and over again, going, fuck you, fuck you, fucking.
SPEAKER_02Well, poor Adrian Neville is it's laying there going, like, my ankle is fucking broken. They're putting that fuck you, fucking. Somebody end this match somehow. Okay, so I know we're gonna, I'll have to somehow edit this to 45 fucking minutes. This is what happens. You get me and Brett talking about wrestling.
SPEAKER_04Right. Just digressing on everything.
SPEAKER_02Nerd gas worse, it's getting worse. Any case, that's why I was glad uh Boosh and John aren't in this. Because can you imagine more opinion?
SPEAKER_05Right, right.
SPEAKER_02Uh any case. I only want to hear our own. So, like, so to prepare this one, sometimes a botch will make a moment better or a match more interesting, right? Mankind going through the hell in the cell cage wasn't planned. People think it's planned, but it wasn't. The part where he gets thrown off the cell, planned. The part where he goes through the middle of the fucking thing.
SPEAKER_03Well, I guess the plan was to break through it. Not like that. No, not like that. Well, that's the part where people go, Well, no, it broke too easy. And they're right. Because they're supposed to, I guess Taker was supposed to choke slant him and it was supposed to give a little bit, and then give a little bit more and give a little bit more, but instead it just went ping up.
SPEAKER_02Nick Folia's been broken in half. Can somebody stop the damn match? Right? Yeah, exactly. Um, there's so many stories we could mean Brad could just say about that one, but we're not, we're not gonna wrap that one up. So Great Suzuki and Liger had a really fun one too, where Liger during this match sarcastically applauds a legitimate slip from the middle rope by Great Suzuki. Suzuki, shout out if you don't know, phenomenal wrestler, phenomenal cruiserweight. Vince was supposed to build the entire cruiserweight division around him. He has a match with Taka Michinoku. Taka impresses them so much they go, fuck Suzuki and his contract. Let's get the cheaper, faster Taka. But Suzuki was incredible. He's the first guy on TV that I knew of that did the sp the flying space tiger drop, which is this no hands twisting plancho with that like in absolutely incredible. Had had they debuted in WCW, they would have been famous. Like we're talking Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jarco famous. Unfortunately, we're at WWE or WWF at the time, they don't do the cruiseweight thing. Eventually it just got fed to Kane. But any case, um, I'm gonna play that really quick because Sasuke recovers from this accident and he turns it into a great spot where he takes advantage of this thing and does one of the nastiest Frankensteiners you will ever see. And it's it's a it's a brilliant moment where you remind you that these guys are playing improv a little bit. So you're gonna see it over here. Ba-bam! Right here just goes egg. Good job. Yeah, right, and then he recovers really fast because that's what you would kind of do. And there's that fucking spike on that Frankenstein man.
SPEAKER_04No, that actually looked great, right?
SPEAKER_02It looked amazing. It looked like it if you took if you didn't know the back history of there was supposed to be a move and a transition, you would have thought like cocky liger. Yeah, right, right. You got to, yeah, just like, hey, he this guy fucked up. Look at this moron. Oh my god, he's up. It would have been like that. Same idea. So, in the spirit of that, I'm coming back with Austin breaks his goddamn neck and comes back as the toughest son of a bitch in wrestling. So wow. Hummer slam 1997. Austin has just done the infamous Austin 316 prom by King of the Ring in June. He gets put in a probe program with Owen Hart, stemming from a match of the month before in what was the criminally underrated Canadian stamp cube.
SPEAKER_03You're coming off of uh the the reason he's there is because of the curtain call with Shawn Michaels, Triple H Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash. So because Triple H fucked up, Austin got his spot.
SPEAKER_02So we're talking like a butterfly flaps his wings and causes a tornado in his goal thing. Like it is the butterfly effect. Um, if you've never seen the Canadian Stampede show that leads up to this, I recommend it. It's one of the best pay-per-views of all time. And nobody ever it doesn't get talked about.
SPEAKER_03Except the one with Austin and the Legion of Doom versus the Heart Foundation.
SPEAKER_02The entire Heart Foundation, it it's famous because they're in Canada. So this super face team, including Ken Shamrock, everybody on the face side who would be faces anywhere in the world immediately wrestles heel, except for Ken, who doesn't fucking know how, but everybody else wrestles heel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's the apparently Ken Shamrock never got wised up to the business. So he was in there like really punching people, and you're like, you let a UFC guy really punch you guys?
SPEAKER_02It's a corporate and misnomer. He did know the business, he just wasn't sure how to make it not as legitimate as it should have been. You know what I mean? Like he he went a little far a lot, but Shamuk was the guy who was biting on blood-filled condoms to pretend he had internal bleeding like every other fucking match. Not the writer. Something people forget. Austin isn't quite Austin yet. He was very popular after WrestleMania 13, just like Bortman was saying, there had to be other things to happen behind the scenes for him to even get here because he is popular. He did that whole passing down instead of tapping out the best sharpshooter, but he's not main eventor. You know what I mean? He's not a guy yet. You don't have to really put the title on him yet, really. He could just kind of exist on his own. Match itself, best match on the show. Owen is incredible. Um, Austin does is just doing still in the ringmaster mode. He's still doing some technical shit, but also punching and kicking a lot, like he would eventually do forever. The the thing about the match people forget, Owen works Austin's neck the entire time. So they're already talking on commentary. Austin's got the neck injury, Austin's got this, Austin's got that. A little accidental foreshadowing. Austin comes back with a Russian leg sweep, goes into a chin lock, Austin goes for a tombstone, Owen reverses, and then the moment happens. So Austin has stated that while planning the match, the PAL driver was going to be a false finish, considering that they had all these neck related spots, right? Makes sense. Austin, however, wanted the tombstone instead. More comfortable taking that version of it. Owen wanted to do the sit-out version. And since it's Owen, Austin agreed. PAL driver gets botched. Austin's neck is legit broken, leading to him being temporarily paralyzed during the match. Owen knows it's wrong. He starts working the crowd, basically like waving and stuff, just whatever you can fucking do with Austin somehow actually recovers and then pins Owen, which what Owen would later describe as a roll-up so weak that his little kid could do it harder. Yeah, it looks really bad.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, it's just like shit. And you can tell Austin is giving all of his strength that he had.
SPEAKER_02And the thing is, everybody forgets this part. The stipulation to the match was if I can't kick his ass, I'll kiss it. They were supposed to do a kiss my ass match after that. Imagine that shit. The match is done. Austin's lucky he can walk again, gets the neck fusion. And if you believe the story, he never really truly forgives Owen until towards the end of his life. And even that's kind of in dispute. There's an alternate time when Austin's severely injured, doesn't return, doesn't help rebuild the WWF with the hottest angle they've ever had, and they go out of business because this is going to be during the 88 weeks that they lost straight. So yeah, it's there's an element of they might go out of business as Austin doesn't come back. Instead, Austin comes back meaner, angrier, comes to every man.
SPEAKER_03As me as Mikey know as uh nine 49er fans, you know, when you're getting your ass kicked and then your top star gets injured. Yeah, exactly. You're like, well, wait a minute, you know, and your quarterback gets turf toe for seven weeks. You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And if he's saying he's coming back anytime now, Austin actually came back.
SPEAKER_03Fuck you, though, pretty.
SPEAKER_02So in any case.
SPEAKER_03Um actually, I was watching that Monday after the pay-per-view, but Monday, you know, it's on a Sunday. He came back the day after. Yes. And they're like, he's broke, his neck's broken, he's you know, he's in the hospital, he's not gonna be here. And then the glass shatters, and he came out holding a neck brace and threw it on the ground. And I was like, you know, the the term is marked out when they get you. So I was marking out at home as a kid.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we were crying just screaming for our heads off back then. And the and the greatest thing ever was this was the early days of the internet. Everybody knew Austin's neck was broken. So if you're nerds like me, me and Borman, we 100% knew that this was a real injury. And there he fucking shows up. Immediately, he legitimately became the toughest man in Russ. That moment for me was Austin being the toughest person I've ever seen. At least in that and then Kurt Angle broke his freaking neck, and then it did, then it was all over.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Everything that we loved for the last 20 years never happened, right?
unknownEverything.
SPEAKER_03Um my second was uh I don't know if I really want to do this one because it's it's kind of sad. Was my second one was gonna be about Hawk, had a botch storyline where he was um he was an addict, but he was like a drug addict in real life, and they tried to mirror his real addiction with like a story addiction persona where they were gonna kick him out of the Legion of Doom for having a drug addiction. And I was like, nah, I don't and uh that's not that's not really that fun. That was actually really sad for me to watch, uh, especially being a huge Legion of Doom fan. Orman was the bigger Legion of Doom fan, for sure. And and Hawk was my guy too. So I was like, this sucks. But I will I will of of mention though, just of mention of the storyline was there's one point where Hawk gets up on the Titentron, which is the giant screen at the top of the ramp, gets up and threatens to jump. And uh, so they have Draz, who was the new Legion of Doom recruit at the time, go up, climb up the uh Titentron to come and get Hawk back down. And when he gets up there, he pushes him off through the back. And it was later revealed that uh Draz was the dealer, was Hawk dealer before the storyline was but anyway. What about what I would rather talk about because we're talking about botch is my favorite entrance botch was Undertaker. Yes, oh my god, yeah, yes, he's on fire. The fire one. Actually, I wasn't gonna say the fire one, but we can talk about the fire one too. My favorite, the fire one is pretty awesome, actually. Now I'm I'm wishing I said that one instead. But I what I was gonna talk about was when he he had this giant coat uh with a hood that he came out to like WrestleMania 17 or no, no, it wasn't 17, it was uh WrestleMania 20, whatever, eight. You know, it was when he fought Triple H and Hell in the Cell. So he came out with this big coat and he had just shaved all his hair off. So I guess something happened. So he wore the coat on raw the next night, but I guess he had freshly just shaved his head, like even more. So when he went to take the hood off, the hood got stuck in his on his hood, his hood got stuck, and then his arm got stuck when he tried to his arm, he tried to pick take his arm and take the hood off, and he ended up getting completely twisted in the coat and he couldn't get out of it. What so you know the part where he like takes his hat off and then the lightning goes and he and he he does the eye thing, you know? So that moment, instead of doing that I thing, it's him going, my hood, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh no, my arm is not kicked, uh Baker became us when we walk into a spider web.
SPEAKER_03And you can see him pulling his face like, I'm the dead man, I'm fucking serious, this is not going well. And I can't he's shaking his head, like, get off my head. And then the best part in Taker's own words, take it taker's own words, he said, because it was he was tagging with Kane. He said, I looked over at Kane, like, help, you have to help me. And all Kane did was look at him, and you can see it on screen. He actually says it. He said Kane just looked at me and went, oh shit. Oh, thanks, brother. Thanks for all your help. And I guess so the next day they're at the TV taping before um before everyone got there. So Vince McMahon, who also who Vince McMahon is the only one that gets away with pranking Undertaker. So he said, so he put a Titan Tron up and he said, ladies and gentlemen, the Undertaker in his gravest match yet, Undertaker versus the coat. And then they played the footage of him fighting with the coat.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. I I did you mention, Dom, before we wrap up, just so I can get it out there, that you made a song for Bortman. I I didn't even did you I wasn't here for the beginning.
SPEAKER_04Uh I did post it in Discord under basic. Yeah. Okay. So did you hear it already? Yeah. So this is it.
SPEAKER_03I want to hear it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Red back in town. This is surreal. Clock hands clap.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that's all you get. So, like right at the end. That's all I can fucking take.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. Yeah. I'm so I'm glad I'm surprised you got 30 seconds out of uh underscore there.
SPEAKER_02So no, no, I was waiting for this. I had to shave off the first five because I'm like, well, I don't know. This is a long song. Um, it's got two verses and a chorus.
SPEAKER_03I Tom, I will listen to it when this when this episode concludes, sir. And I will love this one last story.
SPEAKER_04Just because I want to get my best Cody Rhodes in the case. Yes, I like Cody Rhodes. Or I should say he was impersonating Ted DiBiassi, if you guys know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, I do. Ted DiBiassi Jr., by the way.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Cody Rhodes, six-man tag match on SmackDown. It was him, Ted DiBiassi, and Wade Barrett against Daniel Bryan, Ezekiel Jackson, and the original Sincara, who he describes as the one who screwed up all the time.
SPEAKER_02Mystico, that is a fucking topic I one day want to rant about. I swear to fucking cry. You know, Mystico, the whole echo basically owns Mexico City. Oh my god. Everything went wrong. Everything. They gave him the cane lights to wrestle on, but blue. You know, don't even be sorry. Don't be sorry.
SPEAKER_03Don't feel bad for Mystico. He owns Mexico City. So we're fine. You know, he's fine.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, I just loved how Cody Rhodes said, like, in this match, Ezekiel Jackson is supposed to be the hero, the one that comes in at the end and just, you know, destroys everybody and wins. But that's not what happened. The match only lasted about four minutes because Daniel Bryan and Ted DiBiassi wrestled for just a little bit. Brian does like a leg drop in the corner and then goes for the pin on Ted. And the ref counts to three, and then Ted basically kicks out. And it's that awkward, whoops. Well, okay, we won. And everyone starts cheering, and it's like, but only you two guys wrestled. What was the point of having everybody else in there? And then I love how Cody Rhodes is saying, like, coming up with the idea of, well, let's just jump them, let's go back in there. But Wade had already gone back up the ramp to go to the back. Well, okay, I guess that's it.
SPEAKER_03Wade said, uh, Wade said, Oh, well, I've got some bad news.
SPEAKER_04And then, man, Cody describing, then we go to the back, and there's Vince Vickman ready to just be upset, but instead, Ted just blows by me, no fear, goes up to Vince and says, Where's that referee? He was trying to fuck on me.
SPEAKER_02Love that. By the way, that is a really good impression of Ted DBLC Jr. That was great.
SPEAKER_03That was that was picture perfect, Tom.
SPEAKER_04Oh man. And and it gives a perfect moment in botchamania to have a referee screw up and then he'll feature Cody Rhodes in there.
SPEAKER_02I just hope it's spurring. You do that very well, by the way. That's fucking said to be awesome. During his fight.
SPEAKER_04I guess I've I've seen the clip so many times I could quote it almost for Facebook.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, that's that's it. Um, do you have any way you want to end the show, dude? Because this is your episode. Uh not really.
SPEAKER_04Just thanks for watching. Yeah, we're just botching the end. Thanks. Thanks for yeah. It's only fitting that we just botched the end.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, thanks for listening, guys. And yeah, and uh come see me at twitch.tv slash mr.
SPEAKER_02Right. You do a thing now. I forgot. It's good.
SPEAKER_03That's right. I'm not here to talk about wrestling, I'm here to whore out my Twitch. No, no, no, it's it's cute.
SPEAKER_02Your little your little Twitch thing is nice.
SPEAKER_04Everyone knows me as Shadow Spartan by now, so right. Everybody got my YouTube channel.
SPEAKER_03Everything episodes got it. And you can find Shadow Spartan in the in the chat section of twitch.tv slash Mr. Bortman T TV.
SPEAKER_02He only mentions it every episode.
SPEAKER_03Boost G4 TV is also usually in the chat section of twitch.tv slash Mr. Bortman T TV.
SPEAKER_04Restore the Snyderverse.
SPEAKER_03Twitch.tv slash Mr. Bortman T TV.
SPEAKER_02No, we are not doing either one. I don't want to restore the Snyderverse.
SPEAKER_01Clock hands clap, they know the deal. The top house squad is back for another ordeal wheel. But the daylight is coming to time.
SPEAKER_05You got to step to the date.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to the Time Powells. Please like and subscribe. The Time Powell's are the key cornerstone of the Mayday Media Network. Check out all of the Mayday Media podcasts at Mayday Media Network.com
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