Matches You Didn't Think Existed

[HarleyQuinn]

Speaking of Al Snow...

Al Snow & Road Dogg as a tag team is not something I'd expect to see going up against Gangrel & Edge!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Matches you didn't think existed called by commentary teams you didn't know existed (Jonathan Coachman & Raven)

 

[Fall of Epic]

I know that match existed because the message board I was posting on at the time had a meltdown that one of the top guys from the top heel stable was working the B show. They thought this was the beginning of the end of the nWo in WWE. They weren't entirely wrong.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Less than month after WrestleMania X-8 too. Not that deep into their run. I wonder if Hall being relegated to Heat so soon was a minor punishment.

Also people were just complaining about Judgment Day being on Main Event this weekend. More things change...

 

[Fall of Epic]

Yeah, this was definitely a punishment for Hall to get his shit together. Wasn't the Plane Ride from Hell just a few weeks later?

JD being on Main Event is baffling but I guess the company lost hope once Edge left and Ripley got concussed. Finn Balor can't catch a break on the main roster.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Judgment Day are facing the Mysterios though, which is almost enough to make me think it's a weird attempt to elevate Main Event. I doubt Rey has been on a C show since the mid 2010s.

Fake edit- looking up Rey's Cagematch, it looks like The Mysterios wrestled The Hurt Business on Main Event at the beginning of the year. GD. If WWE doesn't have a problem throwing a legend like Rey on C show, it's no surprise that they aren't hesitating to push Judgment Day down.

Hey! This isn't the current WWE thread!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

A TSM dream match!

 

[BruiserBrody]

I wouldn't think off hand that Pittman wasn't still on the 130 man WCW roster in 1998.

Nice to see Gary from the Stern show getting the ring announcer gig.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Pittman's last WCW match was May '97, which is weird cause I do vaguely recall him being on C/D shows in '98 too. It certainly seemed like he was on the roster for GD ever.

Pittman's brief post WCW run that I see on Cagematch looks fascinating. He got an NWA World Title shot against Dan Severn in July '98 but more interestingly for Brody, teamed with Jimmy Valiant in a two out of three falls match against The Fantastics!

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1545130358647267329

The Japan random match generator wins again. This would be something from NJPW, where we got variations of Hogan vs Dusty in tag matches too IIRC
Kind of makes me wish we had a Newspapers.com like archive of Wrestling magazines to see how/if this kind of stuff was covered.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Was Japan covered in depth (or at all) in the kayfabe magazines before the '90s?

Maybe George Napolitano made Japanese trips but I don't think the Apter mags were going there. I think the Japanese stuff was out of sight, out of mind for 99% of North American wrestling fans until WWF & WCW started working more directly with them in the early '90s.

 

[Super Leather]

George Napolitano absolutely made Japanese trips; the photographic evidence exists in books like my beloved Pictorial History of Wrestling. I think I've seen Bill Apter taking photos in the background of some matches too.

That said, I don't recall very much Japanese coverage in the magazines outside of brief mentions like "the Road Warriors went to Japan, destroying noted Japanese wrestling star Tenryu in the process." Nothing in-depth at all. I only knew about Antonio Inoki and Jumbo Tsuruta because of The Pictorial History of Wrestling. They certainly weren't being written about in magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated circa 1986.

 

[BruiserBrody]

They definitely covered stuff in the articles where Matt Brock or whoever pretended to go around to different cities and view matches, which was just a back door way of talking about indy shows or big territorial angles.
They certainly covered Japan stuff to a degree (including the Rollcall of champions showing all the titles, plus certain matches were big stars had unique contests. (I know I have a magazine from 80/81 where Verne and _____ fight Abby and the Sheik or some shit in AJPW.
Plus if Baba or Inoki were involved, it was going to be covered.
The Apter Mags is where I learned 1st of Inoki's jungle fight with Saito that I did a CXF article on.

Someday when I have more time I can go in the vault and check some random 70s and 80s mags for Japan stuff.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

TIL...Macho Man's last WWF match in the US was challenging Diesel for the IC Title at a house show in San Antonio.

WWF House Show « Events Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database

Internet Wrestling Database

www.cagematch.net

Idk that Macho Man had any US matches after WrestleMania X. Tbf...not much. A match with Rick Martel at a show in Hawaii on their way home from the post WMX Japanese tour, a weekend of house shows in Northeast against Lawler this week in '94 where they were probably called in action cause half the roster was in Europe, and this.

This house show looks kind of fun for the era. I'm oddly curious to see what a Lex Luger-Yokozuna stretcher match looks like.

(Maybe I should've posted this in the New Gen thread)

 

[Valeyard]

Luger/Yoko in a stretcher match sounds kinda awesome.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547303508218707968

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1547303508218707968

 

[BruiserBrody]

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1549928883457253377

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1550569778233974789

Genuinely surprised 911 went over. What an electric match.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Undertaker wrestling in Japan against Takashi Ishikawa from 1992 is a match I didn't expend to find!

 

[Valeyard]

The Japanese fans just not being into Taker is great. 20 years too soon.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Tennessee: Original home of the Forbidden Door

(@tekcop nods sagely)

 

[JN News]

For me, it was Hulk Hogan vs. "Ravishing" Rick Rude for the WWF Title in the Boston Garden in (I believe) 1987. I think that MIGHT be Hogan and Rude's one and ONLY match ever.

But I might be wrong about that, but who knows.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Hey @BruiserBrody

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1553930559767957504

 

[alfdogg]

But did they find any umpires for Miss Softball?