Reach for the (Minus) Stars: Sky's Collection of Bad Matches

[Barry Poppins]

Yeah basically a speed run of Vince McMahon: Sexual predator, oversaw a culture of fear, protected other abusive personalities within his company, covered up abuse within Chikara.

 

[Loochblade]

...fuckin hell. First time I hear anything about that, I think.

 

[Chris]

It's essentially why the company closed down permanently though they were having other issues too

 

[Barry Poppins]

Yeah really they were having financial issues once COVID hit, but once the allegations came out most of the people there quit.

 

[Sky]

Entry #974
Pat Kenney vs. Vito
Luck of the Irish Weapons Match
NWA-TNA PPV #106 - August 4, 2004​

It's really been a month, huh? Things have fallen off recently, and I'm trying to pick them back up. This is something that was referenced during the '04 Impact watch parties, as I saw advertised on PPV an "Irish Weapons" match. I thought, oh well, just another step in one of those sub-WCW Thunder feuds that TNA was having on its undercard at the time, during that period where the weeklies were on their last legs and they'd moved on to using the six-sided ring. But then I chose to look it up. And I knew it had to go on here because it would seem, just by the description of the affair, that they recreated the San Francisco 49ers match. Or rather, originated the Riddle Box match. Has weapons in boxes ever not sucked? Let's watch.

We get the explanation that there's three boxes, two empty and one containing weapons. And there's a rugby ball in the middle with the key to all three boxes attached. And falls don't count until the weapons have been revealed. Fucking hell, Russo. Vito does not fuck with the ball initially, going right for a choke with the shirt. He grabs the ball but wastes too much time mugging for the crowd and Kenney recovers. The ball gets launched out of Vito's hands and out of sight. Kenney gets some basic offence in before dropping out to grab it, but by that time Vito's recovered. BOOT CHOKING! While Trinity tries to use the ball to open a chest. There's nothing in it, so Vito castigates Trinity for not checking to see if anything was rattling in there. At least she's sticking around, I was looking forward to making jokes about chests.

Vito lamps Kenney with the first box before unlocking the second. Again, nothing, and neither Vito nor Trinity thinks to pick anything up and rattle it around. Vito now blames Trinity for a decision he himself made. Trinity grabs the third chest and Vito gives it a Mafia Kick into Kenney's head. Then he puts one chest on Kenney's head and hits it with the other. Kenney's selling Trinity's offence harder than Vito's. Trinity and Vito can't decide who gets to open the weapon chest and they squabble a bit. Vito somehow doesn't realise he loses nothing from Trinity opening it, goozles her, Kenney crashes into them... sending Trinity into the turnbuckle, and as she bounces back the ball she's clutching lands right in Vito's gabagool. Okay that's a GREAT spot.

Kenney gives a cutter on to the ball, then goes for the third chest... GLENN GILBERTTI of all people comes out, in full leprechaun gear, and beats Kenney up. Disco tries to leave with the ball, but David Young intercepts him. Which the camera misses. Brawl back to the ring, Young smacks Disco on the dome with a chair. Young passes the ball, who FINALLY unlocks the chest, revealing it to be full of green-painted baking trays and other low-impact weapons. Vito gets it, Trinity tries to use a tray on Kenney, but You Know This Spot. Kenney gives Trinity one ("one" being a shot to the head with a bin lid). He finishes it off by wrapping a green chain around his elbow and smacking Vito with it for the win.

That match may be single-handedly what revives this thread because it's just what I'm looking for. Stupid stipulation, all sorts of nonsense happening including defying the laws of logic, and the central gimmick being quite lame when it comes down to it. I mean, it's an Irish weapons match, and they didn't even have a fake shillelagh? Shameful stuff. And that's what I love about bad wrestling.

 

[Sky]

Entry #975
Sandy Beach vs. Eddie Rose
Wrestling from Mango, FL - May 5, 1990​

This match is inspired by the disappearance of all the widely available footage of Herb Abrams' UWF supercards. Apparently the Savoldis remembered they had that library and took everything down to direct us to their territory streaming service that no one uses. So I'm just left looking at the wider career of one of the few relatively-unknown "young stars" that they had, Sandy (Sunny) Beach. Which brings me to this random show in Florida, which had 11 matches but no clean finishes. As far as I know Vince Russo wasn't in Florida in 1990 so you wonder why.

Announcer calls a ten minute time limit. Oh, a lightning match! Beach grabs a wrist and they go to the mat, where a pretty lame "ground game" sequence happens. Rose grabs a leg, gets put into a lame headscissors, then both guys just give up. Rose downs Beach with a headlock a bit too easily. Nothing looks painful, it's all just standing around. Announcer will not shut up during the match. There's an alleged drop toe hold and Beach grabs the ropes. Two minutes in and the first guy chants "boring". Terrible clothesline by Rose, then he just runs into the ropes for no reason. ON GOES THE HEADLOCK by Beach. It blows about a minute of match time, thankfully, before Beach gets up and turns it into a bulldog for two. Both guys trip over themselves trying to do the bulldog, but still.

Rose does a bearhug because apparently it's still the 1970s in Florida, but goes to the ropes and gives up on it pretty soon. Beach soon works a wrist and does an Irish whip into a bearhug of his own. Neither looks particularly good even by bearhug standards. Five minutes have expired, says the ref. Rose dodges a corner charge and does a roll-up for one. Time for Beach to stall. He counters a whip by clinging to the ropes. "Come on, California girl" -I think the same guy in the crowd who chanted "boring". On goes a headlock, about a minute after the five-minute warning, and now it's a one-minute warning. I guess this is their cue to wrap it up. Rose hits another shitty clothesline and an elbow drop for one. Then a knee drop for one. Then a monkey flip. Beach does an inverted atomic nutshot, Rose tries to Flair flop it, but he sucks so much it looks like he forgot how to bump. It looks like Beach got the three but the announcer informs the ref the time limit expired. So, a Dusty finish and a ten-minute time limit draw, after seven minutes.

At least it's over. Really lame match with a really lame finish. It must have been rough before they invented having good wrestlers on the indies.

 

[Sky]

Entry #976
Terry Funk (c) vs. Chris Candido
Hardcore Match for the WCW Hardcore Championship
WCW Thunder - May 31, 2000​

It's been nearly 25 years since this legendary moment, and I want to thank the good people at the WWE Vault for having it up. It's one I had lined up for when the Network was still up, but then the WWE Vault posted this in one of their compilations, so I'm watching it now. This is rated extremely high by WCW 2000 standards but you gotta put it here because this is the one where Terry Funk gets kicked by a horse. How does that happen? We'll find out!

Pre-match has Candido come out in Funk-themed clothing promising to put down the old man once and for all. Said old man comes out with a steel chair and lightly dings Candido in the face with it all the way up the elevated walkway. I love me a good elevated walkway. They walk-and-brawl TO THE BACK and they ramble a bit about what Bischoff and Russo are doing while the camera guys struggle to make it there. Funk tips a pot of electrical parts over Candido, then tosses him into a laundry basket and tips it over. He then gets Candido on a flatbed truck, and starts the engine. All the while, the ref just stands there gawping, rather than taking the opportunity to hop on the thing as it inevitably drives off.

The truck eventually makes it to a nearby stables, where Candido's picked up a bin and starts using it on Funk. There are live horses, and for some reason a table, here. Candido tosses Funk into hay then dunks him in a water trough. Then a wheelbarrow full of manure. You'd think he'd do it the other way around, just out of kindness. "He'll be able to grow tomatoes in his beard" -Schiavone with a top commentary line. Eventually Candido opens the stables, where the brawl continues next to a proper real horse. It seems spooked, and Schiavone entertains the possibility of it winning the Hardcore Title. Funk hits a piledriver, and the horse kicks him properly hard. He no-sells it though. Big leaguing a horse, for shame.

Anyway, Funk hits incredibly light bin shots until Candido gets him on the table. He tries to climb the stables but has some rope caught on him so Funk can drag him down and put him through the table ass-first. By this point the ref's made it back but Funk bumps him with the bin... forgeting this means he can't count the pin. So he has to pour water over the ref so he can wake up to count. Candido's dead for like 30 seconds through all this, by the way.

Funny but irresponsible and ultimately damaging to your own business. That's WCW in 2000!

 

[Skyefire]

Entry #975
Sandy Beach vs. Eddie Rose
Wrestling from Mango, FL - May 5, 1990​

This match is inspired by the disappearance of all the widely available footage of Herb Abrams' UWF supercards. Apparently the Savoldis remembered they had that library and took everything down to direct us to their territory streaming service that no one uses. So I'm just left looking at the wider career of one of the few relatively-unknown "young stars" that they had, Sandy (Sunny) Beach. Which brings me to this random show in Florida, which had 11 matches but no clean finishes. As far as I know Vince Russo wasn't in Florida in 1990 so you wonder why.

Announcer calls a ten minute time limit. Oh, a lightning match! Beach grabs a wrist and they go to the mat, where a pretty lame "ground game" sequence happens. Rose grabs a leg, gets put into a lame headscissors, then both guys just give up. Rose downs Beach with a headlock a bit too easily. Nothing looks painful, it's all just standing around. Announcer will not shut up during the match. There's an alleged drop toe hold and Beach grabs the ropes. Two minutes in and the first guy chants "boring". Terrible clothesline by Rose, then he just runs into the ropes for no reason. ON GOES THE HEADLOCK by Beach. It blows about a minute of match time, thankfully, before Beach gets up and turns it into a bulldog for two. Both guys trip over themselves trying to do the bulldog, but still.

Rose does a bearhug because apparently it's still the 1970s in Florida, but goes to the ropes and gives up on it pretty soon. Beach soon works a wrist and does an Irish whip into a bearhug of his own. Neither looks particularly good even by bearhug standards. Five minutes have expired, says the ref. Rose dodges a corner charge and does a roll-up for one. Time for Beach to stall. He counters a whip by clinging to the ropes. "Come on, California girl" -I think the same guy in the crowd who chanted "boring". On goes a headlock, about a minute after the five-minute warning, and now it's a one-minute warning. I guess this is their cue to wrap it up. Rose hits another shitty clothesline and an elbow drop for one. Then a knee drop for one. Then a monkey flip. Beach does an inverted atomic nutshot, Rose tries to Flair flop it, but he sucks so much it looks like he forgot how to bump. It looks like Beach got the three but the announcer informs the ref the time limit expired. So, a Dusty finish and a ten-minute time limit draw, after seven minutes.

At least it's over. Really lame match with a really lame finish. It must have been rough before they invented having good wrestlers on the indies.

Where did you dig that up from? I tried looking it up and there does not seem to be a record of the match, of Eddie Rose existing, or of a wrestling show ever happening in Mango, FL.

 

[Skyefire]

On a side note, I looked up Herb Abram's UWF as I was somewhat familiar with it and, well, Herb Abrams looks a lot different than I expected.

 

[Sky]

Where did you dig that up from? I tried looking it up and there does not seem to be a record of the match, of Eddie Rose existing, or of a wrestling show ever happening in Mango, FL.

specifically, I found this existed from a column on Scott's Blog

 

[Sky]

Entry #977
The Rainbow Express vs. Buff Bagwell/Gran Apolo
NWA World Tag Team Championship Tournament Semi-Final Match
NWA-TNA PPV #3 - July 3, 2002​

Things seem pretty dire over in TNA-land, don't they? And not even the edge-of-your-seat "they're going out of business" way, just an example of the continuing WWE-ification of this entertainment we call sports. So, since I may find myself out of a TNA+ subscription sooner rather than later, I've got to speedrun all of the bad things that happened in the company that got me into wrestling. And I choose to start... with Bruce. Wrestling was just homophobia city in 2002, and this was possibly the worst of the lot. First in my selection is this match, when he was part of a tag team tournament. Alongside his tag team partner who sucked, against Bagwell who sucked, and Apolo who could do some cool power stuff but otherwise sucked. Hoo boy.

I'm sure it was funny to someone to pair Joel Gertner with a gay team. They have a hug at the start of the match, then Bruce bends over in front of Bagwell. OVW Thing ends in Bagwell giving a hip toss and doing his strut, which lets Bruce attack from behind. Vader Bomb by Bagwell, but he loses control and we don't see why because Ryan Shamrock comes down to ringside and accepts money from Ed Ferrara for reasons that are never explained. Camera on her causes us to miss an entire Rainbow Express heat segment. Sitout powerbomb by Apolo for two. He does all his power stuff on Lenny but Gertner grabs his ankle. Lenny DDT for two. He tags to Bruce by kissing his hand.

Bruce goes full "Angry Alan" mode. Remember that gimmick? Rainbow Express do a fun gay move, a leapfrog rope-hug sitout senton to the ass. It makes sense, okay? Lenny does an erotic slow crawl for a pin and when Apolo tries to wriggle away he does a bit of ground and pound. Leg drop for two. Apolo gets off a full nelson slam before a hot tag. Bagwell pounds both gay men pretty roughly. He goes for a crossbody on Lenny on the ropes, but clearly something was botched. I think Lenny was meant to get a knee up, with the way Bagwell is selling. Apolo lands a superkick on Bruce and hits the TKO but Lenny attacks and sends him out. Blockbuster by Bagwell but he doesn't see Lenny hitting a superkick for three. Post-match Bagwell leaves his partner behind and declares he's not Buff any more. I get it, losing in such a ho-hum match must be demoralising.

Weak match. When Apolo was doing his sick ass power stuff the camera wasn't focusing on it, and instead we got Bagwell botching and then losing.

 

[Sky]

Entry #978
Taylor Vaughn (c) vs. Bruce
for the Miss TNA Crown
NWA-TNA PPV #7 - July 31, 2002​

What Bruce is most infamous for, though, is not being a poor man's Lodi (fucking hell, that's an insulting comparison and a half) but wanting to be Miss TNA. Because gay men are women, or something. This crusade began in a match (if you can call it that) against the current holder of TNA's first ever women's championship... the woman who was BB in the WWF. I know where this is going.

This starts as a segment where overly horny Don West is interviewing Taylor. "Look, we got three boobs in the ring" -thanks, Tenay. He doesn't get anything out before Bruce comes out (to the ring). He praises Ron Killings for wanting to be treated with respect and go for an opportunity. Taylor starts the match by punching Bruce in his dick. And throws her shoes at him. To be fair, she then goes for a suplex and a scoop slam. Neither gets even a one-count. The Nashville crowd are at least kind enough to "woo" for her chops. There's soon a CATFIGHT~, before Bruce hits a lariat. He slaps on an abdominal stretch before going for a leg drop... misses! Not long after, he hits the Fruit Loop for the win. He's Miss TNA! He's so happy to have the tiara and sash!

Actually, I have to commend Bruce for fighting what is basically a dark-age Diva match. He even got the incompetence right.

 

[Sky]

Entry #979
Bruce (c) vs. Taylor Vaughn
Evening Gown Match for the Miss TNA Crown
NWA-TNA PPV #8 - August 7, 2002​

Just a week later, Taylor got her rematch in an Evening Gown match. Men in dresses! We all love it! It doesn't make us hate the world we live in!

Oh, come on. He's even got a blonde wig to pair with the evening gown. A true prom queen. "You suck dick" chants. Bruce misses a corner charge and takes an inverted atomic nutshot. Then a regular atomic drop. Bruce regains control with a big boot and downs her. Delayed vertical suplex, but Taylor is not upskirted. Huge heel move. Fruit Loop is hit and Bruce slowly, painfully strips the unconscious Taylor, seeming almost disgusted to touch a woman's flesh. That's the match, but Bruce grabs the mic and strips anyway. Jesus fucking Christ kill me now. The TNA+ feed blurs his man-ass but I've seen the uncensored feed on an old watch. It's as bad as it sounds.

Not even worth stripping Taylor Vaughn. Awful.

 

[Sky]

Entry #980
Bruce (c) vs. Tina Hamilton
for the Miss TNA Crown
NWA-TNA PPV #9 - August 14, 2002​

And so began a pattern that lasted for a few shows. Bruce would show up in his evening gown, issue an open challenge, a planted woman in the crowd would come out and lose, rinse and repeat. I'm not sure I have to do all of these matches, but I will anyway. It's only fair. This is the only one where Bruce's opponent doesn't have a Cagematch page!

"I do Bruce's hair" sign in the crowd. "Cut the mic" chants midway through the promo. Tina kicks right off with a spear that kicks Edge's in the ass. Big slam and big leg drop. Bruce is crawling away but Tina keeps laying into her and tosses him off (out of the ring). This is totally one-sided until Bruce has a small package (uses an inside cradle) and wins.

Why didn't Tina Hamilton get signed anywhere? She actually knows how to work! Oh yeah, it's because she's not a model. Yikes.

 

[Sky]

Entry #981
Bruce (c) vs. April Hunter
for the Miss TNA Crown
NWA-TNA PPV #11 - August 28, 2002​

Wild to think that this particular show could have been the last ever show for a promotion that still exists nearly 23 years later. Though I may soon be leaving TNA behind, it's amazing to think how long it's lasted. Anyway, here's the same Miss TNA match but again.

Same Bruce promo as usual, that gets turned into Morse Code by how many beeps are required to mask the slurs. His opponent is "Noted Fitness Model" and actual fucking wrestler April Hunter. Chops, a "Japanese armdrag", and a flying headscissors give April control but Bruce does a neck snap over the ropes. Bruce is more of a Diva than April, using hair-pulls. Tenay calls it as the Moolah playbook, yep. Big suplex by Bruce and he does some generic heat on April. April soon reverses and gets a boot but eats a sunset flip for one. Bruce goes back to hair-pulling, and hits a powerbomb for the win. Post-match Bruce tries to strip April but gets beaten up by Slyck Wagner Brown. Does this lead to anything? Nope.

I'm most amazed by the amount of offence April got compared to Random Woman In The Crowd. So are we saying April is worse than Random Woman Tina Hamilton? Well, TNA sure are.