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Episode 36: Slamboree Retrospective
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A third series down! Join us as we take a look back at Slamboree and figure out the series' identity and unifying themes. We'll also play some guessing games (see how you do!) and hand out series awards...and create our Ultimate Slamboree cards. Finally, find out what we'll be covering next! For all this, plus an exploration of the fourth dimension, Let's Go to the Ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Literally, in the case of one of the Legends matches, which pits past year- uh, which pits past our zero- Wow.
Hosts' Introductions & WCW Series Recap
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host Bob Moore, and I'm joined by someone who has the option to become the person that gets the chance to host this episode with me, Alec Bridget. I think I'll exercise that option.
00:00:56
Speaker
How's it going tonight, Al? Good. How's it going with you? It's going good. It's going good. We have finished our third series. Wow. Slamboree. And actually, we just hit another milestone as well. Really? Do you know when we first started Let's Go to the Ring? I don't recall the exact date, no. We released our first episode, Starrcade 83, in September of 2018. Oh, wow. So not only have we been at this for three series, but we've been at this for three years. Wow.
00:01:25
Speaker
It's pretty cool, huh? Yeah, absolutely. So tonight, I thought it'd be fun to do a little bit more of a look back. So we're gonna be looking back at Slamboree, playing some of our usual guessing games and handing out some awards, but I thought it might also be fun to take a look at some stats from across our entire run so far. Alright. Now one note, though we covered it as part of the Slamboree series, none of the stats tonight will include Ready to Rumble. It's a movie, not a wrestling show.
00:01:55
Speaker
All our stats and awards concern the actual Slamboree series and other wrestling shows that we've covered in some cases, not the movie.
Slamboree Overview: Stats & Themes
00:02:02
Speaker
Let's be honest, what awards were we really going to give that movie? Not any of the good ones. Let's put it that way. No, no. Not the good ones. So let's talk about some of Slamboree's stats. All right. Slamboree ran from 1993 through 2000, covering a total of eight shows.
00:02:21
Speaker
So, Al, you have any guesses on what the number one slam-bree was in terms of pay-per-view buys? I feel like time-wise it's gotta be 97, just because that's like their peak year, right? You're close. But not quite right. In fact, 1997 is in third place with 165,000. Interesting. In second place is 1999 with 170,000.
00:02:47
Speaker
And in first place is in 1998 with 250,000. Oh. Yeah. Starrcade 97 is their highest show ever, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At 640 something. Yeah, it's some insane number. Yeah. So they steadily climb through 97 up to Starrcade 97. And then they benefit from that for most of 98. And then they come back down. So that's, I think, you can see really diagrammed here that 97 is pretty good.
00:03:16
Speaker
99 is pretty good and 1998 is the one that really really hits the peak in this one and to be fair 97 while it is in their peak year obviously building up to that show It's not really presented as a must-watch show as far as stories and I like the big title matches You're not guaranteed like sting appearance that kind of stuff so I can see why that didn't quite peak as high
00:03:40
Speaker
Exactly. I think that's a good reason for it. It's hitting the strong build-up period, but it hasn't hit the, oh my gosh, we absolutely have to see this level that they hit in the latter stages of the NWO run. Right. At this point, they're probably a very high floor and even higher ceiling.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. So you got any guess for what the bottom show was? I mean, it's got to be 2000, right? You would be correct. Number three is Slambry 1996. It's about right. With 110,000. Number two is a tie. Slambry's 1994 and 1993 each got 100,000. And number one is Slambry 2000, which got an abysmal 52,000.
00:04:24
Speaker
What was 99 again? 99 was 170,000. Wow. That's less than a third. Oh my goodness. The series took place across eight different arenas in seven different states. As one state, Missouri got two shows, but in two different arenas, which was interesting.
00:04:49
Speaker
The top three slambries in terms of attendance. You got a guess on what the number one slambrie for in-person attendance was? Uh, ooh. I feel like I'm going to get in trouble again guessing 97, but that seemed like a solid guess. But I mean 98 for that size number for views anyways. All right. Number three is slambrie 97. Oh, okay. Has 9,643.
00:05:14
Speaker
Number two is Slamberry 98. Ah. With 11,592. And number one is Slamberry 1999. Oh, really? With 20,516. Proof that there is zero connection between attendance and actual show quality right there. Yeah, really. And the bottom three, what do you think for the worst attended show?
00:05:42
Speaker
Um, I feel like it's probably based on how wrestling in general was. So probably like 94, 95, cause that was low time for them. All right. Let's see the third place. Slambry 93 got 7,008 very specific number. It is in second place is slambry 1995 with 7,000, which may just be rounded. Yeah. And actually what's interesting is four of the eight slambries got between seven and 8,000 in a in-person attendance. Huh?
00:06:12
Speaker
And finally, in first place is indeed Slambry 1994 with 4,000. The Slambries varied in terms of matches from as few as 7 to as many as 15, which is too many. Let's just agree on that. Oh, 100% yes. However, five of the shows were right in the middle with 9 or 10 matches. The top three Slambries in terms of the number of matches were
00:06:38
Speaker
In third place, a two-way tie between Slambry's 1997 and 1999, with nine each. In second place, with 10 each, we have a three-way tie, with Slambry's 1993, 1998, and 2000. That sounds all right, yeah. And in first place, with an unholy 15 matches, is Slambry 1996. Yep. That was so long. It was.
00:07:07
Speaker
It's crazy how the time works, because you talked about me watch the show originally. It's not necessarily that show is even longer, it's just that, because there's so many matches, it starts and stops, you sort of get in your mind, like a match is gonna take a certain amount of time, so when there's so many, you think, man, I've been here for like six hours, but you haven't. Right, yeah, it's not necessarily actually a longer show. There's so much repetition. Right, there's that too. There's so many matches and they're so repetitive on that show that it feels so long.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, you get that with Russo-era Nitros and Thunders. Every segment is like three segments. Right. It'd be like a match, someone in the back, and being interviewed in every single bit. So you just get exhausted watching that. You can't keep up. We've spent the last several months going through the Slamburys show by show and talking about each individual show's traits. Now it's time for us to look at the series as a whole.
00:08:06
Speaker
and determine what is Slamberee as a series. What traits or themes stand out? Is there a unified identity to the series or something that unites it as a whole? So Al, what are your thoughts on this? It's tricky because if you go by the first part of this show, obviously it's the legendary union aspect, the sort of honoring the past while presenting the future.
00:08:32
Speaker
You get that pretty strong with like 93 where you have these legend matches and you have Vader and British Bulldog. Here's what things can be like in the 90s now. But then of course they dropped the F95. 96 is that unholy battle bowl show. I never really quite get back on track I think as far as a theme for me.
00:08:52
Speaker
I guess you could maybe argue that they sort of get back around in a really indirect way with like 2000, because so much of the last show is the new blood is trying to replace the millionaires club by other, and in some cases literally it's doing their gimmicks and their looks. So in a way it's kind of a meaner version of that because first one is celebrating the past and this one is them saying let's get rid of the past. So it kind of takes a turn I could see that way.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think you've hit on what I was identifying as well. The general theme I think is tradition. Yeah. And each show handles it in a different way. Some shows are about honoring it and supporting it. And some shows are about disrespecting it or discarding it. Yeah. Or about the war between those two sides. But it all revolves around this concept of tradition and legacy. Yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker
I found it actually quite a fascinating journey for the series. Like you pointed out, it starts with three shows that center around the pinnacle of honor and respect for tradition, Hall of Fame ceremonies. 93, 94 and 95 all feature those ceremonies and they all feature matches involving older wrestlers popular with fans in the pre-WCW period, whether we're talking Jim Crocker promotions, the NWA overall, or even other companies like the AWA.
00:10:06
Speaker
So, they're supporting and honoring wrestling history, and they're giving older stars their time in the limelight once again in the form of matches, promos, and awards.
Storylines: Tradition vs New
00:10:15
Speaker
But an interesting thing happens along the way.
00:10:17
Speaker
As we go from 93 to 94 to 95, the amount of time dedicated to the older stars starts to fall off. Right. So they start to become more isolated from the rest of the show. In 93 and 94, we get a lot of promos from the stars of yesteryear, sometimes nicely used to build up the stars of the present. Yeah. And sometimes just there to have a good time and show off their classic personas. Oh yeah, for sure.
00:10:39
Speaker
But only 93 dedicates a significant amount of time to matches with only prior era wrestlers. 94 features classic wrestlers, Zabisco, Funk, Blanchard, but Zabisco fights a present performer in the form of Regal. True. And Funk is actually being used prominently in 1994 storylines, so he's combination classic era and modern era wrestler. Right. It's true.
00:11:04
Speaker
In 95, cuts the classic content down to a bare minimum. We barely see the prior era wrestlers outside of the Hall of Fame. We get only the slightest amount of promo time from a couple of them in a single short match. Yeah, I wonder what changed, brother. Yes.
00:11:19
Speaker
So while there's still a sense of honor about it all, one gets the sense that the company wants to move on. Yeah. I suppose you could argue there's a sort of pullback to that a little bit in 95 because I remember the show was correctly that has the Paul Orndorff match. Although it's weird because Paul Orndorff is challenging for the IWGP championship. Yes. It's kind of a weird way to use a legend because he is being used presently at that point, but he has that notoriety.
00:11:48
Speaker
So the war over tradition ends up being reflected in storylines too. After a 1996 show that basically abandons everything the series had done up to that point, leaning heavily on the side of change, so much so that it's to the show's detriment. Yes.
00:12:04
Speaker
Though it is at least beneficial in that it gives us the start of the rise of DDP, the concept of tradition comes roaring back in 1997, but in storyline rather than show construction. 97 establishes a theme that's going to run for the rest of the series, the traditional versus the new. In this case, the traditional are the good guys. WCW standing up for respect and order and history of the company and titles that have been around for years.
00:12:31
Speaker
Well, the new guys, the NWO, are filled with disrespect and disdain for everything that has come before and seek to burn it all down. It comes to a head in the main event where tradition wins the day and the NWO suffers a big defeat, though of course the war remains to be settled at a later date and never really is as we discussed in our Stargate coverage. Yeah, that's true. In 1998, we get a fascinating shift.
00:12:57
Speaker
The NWO angle is still going, but it's evolved to the point where the NWO has its own microcosm of the overall company conflict going on. So now it's the traditional NWO, the black and white faction, versus the Wolf Pack upstarts in black and red. For all that I'm going to criticize, an angle where alignments shift basically based on which t-shirt you're wearing. It's an interesting shift for the series theme. For the first time, the traditional is portrayed more negatively.
00:13:23
Speaker
and the new more positively, though it's not a total switch. There's a lot of complexity to it, actually. We have relative newcomers, Nash and Hall, accepted by the crowd, and they're fighting against both long-standing WCW stars and the older stars in their own NWO faction like Hogan. And yet, the heart of WCW, Sting, remains a good guy and by far the most respected wrestler on the show. Yeah. And both sides of the NWO wore for his approval. Mm-hmm.
00:13:50
Speaker
Jericho's disrespect of classic wrestler Boris Malenko is at the heart of another angle and is avenged by Sun and current wrestler Dean Malenko. Meanwhile, perhaps the biggest villain on the whole show is Dusty Rhodes of all people who compounds his betrayal of tradition before the show by betraying the new alongside Hall in support of tradition, just not the right tradition.
00:14:16
Speaker
And the biggest supporter of the overall organization is actually Eric Bischoff of the NWO Hollywood, who seeks to prove the superiority of WCW in a pointless and stupid challenge to the rival of all three. Yeah, true. It's a dumb and massively overlong storyline on the show, but the whole Bischoff vs. McMahon thing is the ultimate WCW good, other stuff bad story of nothing else.
00:14:42
Speaker
The theme goes a bit into the background on 99, but you can still see flashes of it, and again there's some variation on how the sides are treated. The Steiner Brothers classic act is reunited. True, yeah. But with one of the two nigh unrecognizable demands of his classic self. That should show you true, yes.
00:14:59
Speaker
and both as evil heels betraying colleagues to serve their own ambitions. Charles Robinson aspires to honor tradition in the form of Ric Flair, but that very figure proves himself unworthy of honor as a raving madman seeking power at all costs. And yet, again, figures of tradition come off well too. We have classic wrestler Roddy Piper that seeks to dethrone the Madden Flair, and even if he's fighting the new big star, Goldberg, classic wrestler Sting is still clearly a good guy himself.
00:15:30
Speaker
The final match, interestingly, is actually a war of new versus new. We have Nash and DDP, both of whom rose to prominence in WCW only a few years prior, though both have been around on and off earlier as well. So perhaps it's a sign that what was new has now been incorporated as part of the tradition of WCW.
00:15:51
Speaker
And that theme I find is actually solidified in 2000, in which we have classic era wrestlers like Flair and Sting teaming up with middle era Hulk Hogan and present era DDP and Nash to take on the new blood in the form of, well, the new blood. Yes.
00:16:09
Speaker
Now that the previous new guys have been incorporated into WCW's traditions, upholding the company's identity and the melding of what was and what is, a new force is rising to take on the established order once again, continuing the cycle. And just as when that conflict began with WCW versus the NWO, it's now the traditional that is again seen as entirely good and respectful and worthy, while the new wrestlers disrespect it and want to burn it all down.
00:16:36
Speaker
And again, we see the war between the classic and the new extend not just to storylines, but to the company overall, as the world title is no longer seen as something to be respected, but as a tool to use to gain attention and is put on an actor and defended in a match meant to promote a movie. So for all that the traditional may be upheld in winning on screen, for all that the fans may cheer them, it's the new that's winning in 2000.
Speculation on WCW's Future
00:17:02
Speaker
until nobody wins, less than a year later, of course. Yeah. I wasn't the one guy that muddles that a bit with 2000 is Scott Steiner, because he's definitely part of the traditional on the previous couple of years as part of the individual black and white. But then he's awkwardly aligned with the new blood. Yes. Although he's not trying to replace anybody. So that's the thing, it muddles the whole message a little bit.
00:17:26
Speaker
It's not the most graceful angle. Yes. As an overall theme, it works. But yeah, when you delve into individual wrestler's points in it, oftentimes in 2000, it makes no sense. Yeah. As I think we discussed that length on that show. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
So that's slamboree to me. We have the honoring of tradition, combined with the war between that very tradition and the change, the new that's trying to establish itself. It goes from certainty that classic wrestlers are to be honored and respected, to a question of whether what came before should be torn down to make way for the new, whether the new should be stamped out to keep everything that came before, or whether the two should be merged together in the end.
00:18:06
Speaker
It's an interesting question, and it's one that's actually very much at the heart of WCW as a company, both its strengths and its flaws. WCW was at once a company capable of honoring its history, reinventing its history, and establishing new stars. But it was also a company that was all too capable of discarding its past entirely, while paradoxically holding so tightly to it that it squelched the rise of people with potential. Its past and its future were both blessings and veins.
00:18:36
Speaker
When it figured out which was which, it did well. And when it misidentified them, it struggled. Yeah. That conflict is at the heart of the company for so much of its run, and Slamberee brings it to its surface, making for a fascinating series to watch.
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah, because you have Slambry 2000, for instance, that makes the people that want to replace tradition the bad guys. And I could arguably go either way. I could see them going the other direction. Having these established people become bad guys, you're not wanting to give up their spots, as they would say, and that sort of kayfabe blurring thing they like to say back then.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. We do the NWO and then we do New Blood. And in neither case do they think about doing it that way of having the traditional, the historical become the bad. Yeah. They always have the ones that want to change things are the bad guys. And the way they go about it in the NWO and the New Blood is obviously making them the bad guy. Yeah. They're not bad guys because they're proposing change. They're bad guys because they're throwing Rey Mysterio face first into trailers or- Yes.
00:19:38
Speaker
Kidnapping Miss Elizabeth or things like that. Yeah dropping mysterious red liquid from the ceiling
Role of Celebrities & Performers
00:19:43
Speaker
right? Yeah, sometimes in the right place sometimes not It is interesting to think I wonder if they gone on Would they have ever reached a point where they actually were willing to to reverse that yeah and say let's do that that plot of the Uprising basically, but actually have the established order be clearly bad
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, because from what we know about the reboot of Nitro that failed to be because of the whole Time Warner situation, they were definitely going to be about the traditional stars coming back to reclaim the company. That seemed like that was the goal. But obviously some newer built-ups for the Booker T really kept them taking center stage, but it was still going to be Sting and Nash and DDP and such there. So it probably would end up again doing the, we have merged the old and the new. Yeah.
00:20:32
Speaker
But still, whatever rises up as new is questioned first. They're very, I say this as a united Methodist, but they're very united Methodist that way. We don't like change.
00:20:48
Speaker
I shouldn't be remiss in mentioning there's kind of a secondary theme in the series as well. Honestly, probably more than Starrcade, I guess. Celebrities. There's a lot of celebrity involvement across this series. I can't think of all the ones I was able to think of earlier off the top of my head right now, but we have the one hockey dude in 1994. His name escapes me. I know he went by the hammer, but I can't remember the rest of his name.
00:21:12
Speaker
They had the two football players in 97, Reggie White and Kevin Green. Then in 2000, they have David Arquette. I'm sure there's some other ones that I'm forgetting, honestly, but those are the ones that spring to mind. But even with just that, that's three of eight shows. 93 and 94 and 95, you have tons of wrestling celebrities as well that aren't currently working for the company, but are showing up all over the place.
00:21:39
Speaker
I think it becomes an interesting series to watch for a variety of reasons, but definitely that very visible war of tradition is a fascinating thing for the series. Absolutely. We've had a look at the slamboree stats, but now we're going to take a look at some interesting data that I've gathered on the performers who appeared on the shows. You ready for this, Al? Never, but sure. Go ahead.
00:22:06
Speaker
Alright, so first up we have who appeared as a competitor in the most matches. Any guesses?
00:22:14
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I remember I feel like Sting is on almost every slamboree if not every slamboree, you know, he might miss one. Definitely frequent. Yeah. I feel like there's a part in the middle he may not appear because of the timing, but he feels pretty consistent across the board. DDP is very similar to that, although his comes a little later and he does miss the one show having an actual match, I know.
00:22:38
Speaker
Um, they don't, they probably flare. Even being out, he somehow makes his returns on that show. Like when he makes his return to the company for that show. He'd definitely be up there a lot. Hogan appears spartanly little on this show. Only like three times, really, I think? Two matches I can think of on top of my head. I feel like maybe appearance or two somewhere else, but yeah.
00:23:04
Speaker
All right, so you said DDP, Ric Flair, and Sting, right? Yeah. Sting, I think that's the most that I can recall, yeah. All right. So in third place, we have a two-way tie with five appearances each. Okay. We have Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit. I always forget about that. Yeah, that's true. Both of them had a lot of appearances. That's true, yeah. He had actually, in one case, together. That's true, yeah, and then DE. That's the theme. 99, I think it is. 99, yeah. In second place, with six appearances,
00:23:32
Speaker
is Diamond Dallas Page. Gotcha. He was on a Battle Bowl show, so he got three matches right there. That's true. I didn't think of that one, but yeah, that's true. But in first place, tied with seven each are Ric Flair and Sting. All right. So yes, the old reliability are yet again the old reliability. So which show is it that
00:23:56
Speaker
I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm 97. He would not have a match on because he's in the midst of his emo. Oh, of course. Duh. Yep. That makes for a sense. I know you say that. Yeah. But that's matches overall. Who do you think was a competitor in the most main events? Now to clarify, I'm only counting actual main events. That is the final aired match of the show. Okay. What's your guess? I try. Okay. I remember main events.
00:24:24
Speaker
I feel like my first guess is still Sting, because I know he's in... Three there... Don't think he's not main eventing the next... Yeah, hmm. I don't twitch myself when I do that. It's hard, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Sting has got to be top three regardless. I don't know if he is the most, but he definitely appears a lot. DDP's kind of climbs up there towards the end. He has the last few of them.
00:24:50
Speaker
I feel like Flair's out of the main event more than you might think. And then Hogan has the one main event. He would insist that any amount of time he appears in the main event. Well, yeah. Probably contractually. That's how that works. Early streak is Vader. He is the first three, but then he's gone from the series, so. All right. So you're thinking Sting? I think, yeah, I'd say Sting, yeah. Okay.
00:25:13
Speaker
And third place is an eight way tie. Oh my goodness. With one each. Oh, okay. There you go. Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
We have David Arquette, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Green, Six, Hulk Hogan, and the British Bulldog. And I just realized that I actually put Six in my list. I did not intend to do that. I assumed that was attention on your part, honestly. I was giving you the credit for that. It's kind of surprising to see Hogan with as many main events on this series as David Arquette. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
In second place, we have a four-way tie with two main events each. We have The Giant, Diamond Ellis Page, Rick Flair, and Scott Hall.
00:26:00
Speaker
Oh wait, I'm sorry, I forgot the giants, the tagmen event. That's what I forgot about. Okay. Yeah, you remember him versus Sting, but you don't remember him teaming with Sting. Yeah, yeah. That's true. I flicked that one out, yeah. And first place is actually a three-way tie. Oh, there we go. With three each, we have Sting. Yep.
00:26:20
Speaker
Kevin Nash. Oh, yeah, that's true. Invader, because Kevin Nash has the six-man tag. Right? Nice seven, yeah. Then he has he and Scott Hall versus Sticky the Giant. Oh, yeah, that's true. And then he has him versus... 99, yeah, you're right. And of course, Big Van Vader, as you pointed out, the first three shows has all of the main events. He's the anchor, which is appropriate for someone his size.
00:26:43
Speaker
with all due respect. A show isn't just about competitors, though. There's all sorts of other roles to fill. Next up, we'll talk about the commentary team. The most matches called by commentator. Who do you think?
00:26:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm 96 obviously that throws the curve off a lot because so many matches on that show if I remember 96 correctly, that's Tony Dusty and Hainan I believe Tony Bobby Dusty is 96. Yeah. Gotcha Yeah, I feel like it's gotta be Tony then mm-hmm because obviously he peers on the ones he he he's on the last show
00:27:22
Speaker
Argue will be against his will at this point. He sure sounds like it sometimes. A bit of a hostage video going on there. Yeah, yeah. Not quite as much as in Ready to Rumble, but... No, no. Who do you think is second place? I think Mijina maybe? In third place, with 23 matches called, is Dusty Rhodes, baby. Oh, yeah. Again, the 96 curve, yeah. Yep. That adds a ton of matches to his total, definitely. Yeah.
00:27:50
Speaker
In second place, with 56 matches called, so exactly double Dusty's total, actually, is Bobby the Brain Hienan. And in first place, indeed, which will probably be a theme across much of our series, with 69 matches is Tony Schiavone. Yes. I'm sorry, I said Bobby the Brain Hienan had exactly double, but that doesn't work out. That'd be 46 of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excuse me. You can read it if you want it right in.
00:28:21
Speaker
I do math good. I'm an English major, folks. Honestly, it is fitting to do that with Keenan, so it's fine. Yes. But Tony has actually exactly triple Dusty's total. Oh, yeah. It's 23 to 69. I am right on that, right? Yes. Okay, good. What about managers? This one I had no recollection of, I'm going to be honest on.
00:28:47
Speaker
I thought of managers much more prominently in our Starrcade series. For sure, yeah. But there's some surprising numbers on this. So what's your guess for who managed people in the most matches? Oh man, I don't remember. Sonny and I was probably in there, because I know he's got a handful between Dragon... Um... Yeah, I thought I didn't think about it as much.
00:29:12
Speaker
I can't think of any more without, like, going back to actually looking at the matches again. Okay. The one I am ready to recall, no, I'm thinking about it is probably race, but I don't know what his actual number is, but, you know. Okay. Thank you for appearing a few times.
00:29:25
Speaker
Well, these are going to surprise you because they surprised me. In third place, we have a two-way tie with three matches managed each, Arne Anderson and Kimberly Page. Oh, okay. Yes, seriously. Oh, because of nice. Is she managing the... Oh, no, she didn't make GP. She's managing... Yeah, okay. Ed Leslie, that's right. I had the timing of that one, yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, she gets two on Slambry 96, and then she shows up again in Slambry 2000. In second place with five, Jimmy Hart. Oh, of course. He is all over the place on the show with many different wonderful jackets. Oh, right, because I'm 95 especially, yeah. Mm-hmm. Gotcha. And in first place with eight,
00:30:18
Speaker
Colonel Robert Parker. Oh, okay. He is all over the early shows of the series. He has a ton of, ton of manager. Right. He'd have two, at least two from 96, right? Yeah. Cause he's managing, um, was it not, I was like, not even, um, I believe it's Slater. During the next Slater he shows up with. Yeah. Yeah. He gets two there. And then he has actually quite a few appearances earlier on. And he remember, it brings out Barry Windham to face Blair on the one show. Right. Cause that's, that's the cheese of Hulk Hogan. That's right. Yeah. I remember that.
00:30:48
Speaker
That's back to me now, yeah, you're right. But yeah, I completely blinked on that too. It's like, if you asked me on this arcade run, I could have named a good portion of our list, but they just, I didn't think of managers as prominently on this one. Yeah. That's true. Next up, referees.
00:31:05
Speaker
who refereed the most matches. Now, I want to note that I'm counting any referee appearance here. So whether they're the assigned ref, came out to replace the ref after a ref bump, or came out to rectify a referee's call, all of those are being counted. Any guesses? I mean, Nick Patrick's an obvious one. I guess I could say Nick Patrick with or without his mustache. Because there's a blend that I think from the show. I counted with or without mustaches the same person. Okay, just to clarify that.
00:31:33
Speaker
I should start recording mustache appearances though. That'd be funny to see how many times he shows up with it and how many times he shows up without it. Yeah. What's the mustache ratio? Yeah. Yeah. For show. Yeah, I see that. All right. Well, Nick Patrick is always a good bet. You are correct. He's first place, but you're going to be surprised by how close it is. Okay. In third place, we have Mickey J with eight. In second place, we have Randy Anderson.
00:32:00
Speaker
with 18. Wow. That's double. Yes. And in first place, we have Nick Patrick with 19. Oh, wow. So Randy Anderson very nearly took over there. Oh, wow. Goodness.
00:32:14
Speaker
Now I do have to know, it does change if you count only initial referee appearances. Instead, Nick Patrick ties Randy Anderson in first at 18 each as he loses one replacement ref appearance. That puts Mickey J in second with eight appearances. He doesn't lose any. And in third place, we get a four-way tie as Scott Dickinson, Billy Silverman, Randy Eller, and Charles Robinson all have five appearances as initial ref.
MVPs & Notable Matches
00:32:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. Notably, of course, in addition to one more appearance as a replacement referee, Charles Robinson even had one appearance as a competitor on this series. That's true. He's a competitor and a ref on the same show, which is probably... Yes. That gotta be a first, I would think. You would think that it would also be against whatever ethics manual referees get as well. Yeah.
00:33:07
Speaker
We've talked a lot about the people with a ton of appearances, but what about the people with the fewest? Well, there's 84 people who only show up for a single match in any capacity on a slamboree. Though technically there's only 83, since one assigned to a match is Vince McMahon, who just doesn't actually show up at all.
00:33:27
Speaker
Note that some of these people may show up again in non-match segments. I'm not counting those. Right. Of the 83, two took home an MVP award for their single appearance, and they're not who you would expect. Kevin Green and David Arquette. Yeah. Two celebrities. Five actually took home match of the night for their single appearance. We have Kevin Green and David Arquette again, along with the British Bulldog, who got both of our votes for his year.
00:33:57
Speaker
Finley, and Six. Some other interesting people on the list include Tully Blanchard, Vern Gonya, The Great Muta, Road Warrior Animal, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, Sid Vicious, and Z-Man, who was all over last series but isn't even actually credited on this one as he's pretending to be Shane Douglas.
00:34:25
Speaker
Do we have Shane Douglas more than, like, actual Shane Douglas more than once? I believe he also, technically, yes, because he interferes in more than one match. Oh, okay. But if I was counting just as a competitor, I believe he's actually only a competitor once. Yes. So, unofficially, he's two, but officially, he's one. I believe so. Yeah.
00:34:43
Speaker
Last but not least, let's look at who's taken home the coveted Match of the Night and MVP awards. So first up, we're going to go for each host who took home the most MVP awards. So, Al, it's time for the know thyself part of the evening. Yeah. Okay. Who do you think you gave MVP to the most? You think I want all of it. I remember my own and not yours, but I actually don't. I don't think I mind that much to be honest with you.
00:35:09
Speaker
And even going through my notes for the retrospective, I didn't really look through all of that as much as you might think. Well good, it makes the guessing game more fun. Yeah, I do appreciate that. It's all part of my plan.
00:35:21
Speaker
obvious ones, the ones I definitely gave it to a lot would be Sting or Vader. I remember how many I gave them to. Poor Sting doesn't get the one year for sure because his partner was really terrible, so that hurt him a bit. I know Sting is the last one I picked. I remember that. My short term memory is not that bad, but I do remember that one. It doesn't remember the rest of them as much. Given how much he's come up best in this series, DDP might have slept in with me, but I don't remember my exact numbers. All right.
00:35:51
Speaker
So you actually gave your top MVP choice three awards. Oh, okay. And indeed it is Sting. Oh, okay, good. So who do you think I gave the most MVP awards to? Hmm. I know you gave it to Raquel, which is the one time, that's probably the one time. It's just surprising, remember that one. Flare is usually a pretty good choice for that, but I don't remember as far as his appearance in the show.
00:36:19
Speaker
I don't think Arne has a couple of matches, but I don't know if he ended up with those as much or not. He has a Flay or Anderson, but I'm gonna recall. It is actually with two votes.
00:36:31
Speaker
Larry Zabisco. Oh, of course. Right. I really loved his work on the early shows in the series, and I just otherwise distributed my MVPs pretty. Right. You gave him it for 93 for commentary, didn't you? Yes. I think I did a joint for him and Shavani for 93 for commentary. Right. And then I did his match for 94. The Regal loved his performance from that so much that I gave him MVP. That's right. Yeah, I fan that part, but yeah, that's true.
00:36:59
Speaker
So, who do you think got the most MVPs overall? Again, Sting is a good one, I know. We used to be both... hmm, yeah, but I think that's a piece of roll. Going with Sting? Yeah, going with Sting's type one, yeah. Alright, well, here we go. In third place...
00:37:20
Speaker
We have a nine-way tie. Of course. We voted for a lot of different people for MVP on this series, so a lot of people got it only once. Gotcha. So with one award each, we have Big Van Vader, Charles Robinson, Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Kevin Green, David Arquette, Tony Schiavone, and Gordon Soli. Oh, right, yeah. In second place, with two awards, we have Larry Zavisco, the living legend himself.
00:37:51
Speaker
And in first place, we have a two-way tie with three awards each, Sting and DDP. Yeah, that seems fitting. And interestingly, that actually means that all three of Sting's awards came from you. Oh, yeah. I guess so. I'm actually kind of astonished myself that I never actually gave Sting an MVP on this series, but I generally regarded his performance well, just it's not that well.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm remembering the last show I gave it to him because he's seen the leads affected by the... Right. Everyone is more dour and less interesting on that show. He's seen at least still be that sting. He was still sting. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Match of the night participations then. Now, just to clarify, we're only looking at competitors here, so not interferences or referee work or anything like that. Who do you think competed in your match of the night choices the most?
00:38:46
Speaker
Again, this thing statistically seems like a very solid option. I'd say Vader, but I think, unfortunately, the third main event kind of drops away a little bit. Though I don't think he did badly in that. But then he assumed that DDP might have been as, well, wouldn't it pick much that night? Yeah. You tell him not to be super self-centered because I don't remember every single thing I could give awards back to. I guess it's a good character trait.
00:39:09
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'd say those three. So Sting, Vader, and DP are pretty solid. All right. Well, in first place for you, again, with three Match of the Night awards is Sting. Okay. Who do you think competed in my Match of the Night choices the most? This could only have the two matches. It only had one actual match. Oh, right, right. Yeah, sorry. I'm mixing the regal stuff up. Regal is sort of something else in the show up. That's why I'm mixing it up. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.
00:39:38
Speaker
I feel like it's DDP. I know he's in the last one for sure. He picked... I think he made it in with the year before, but... Yeah, I think I'd go with the safe bet. Okay. Well, it's actually a four-way tie, but you are correct. DDP is one of them. Okay. So with two each, I chose Kevin Nash, Dean Malenko, DDP, and Vader. Oh, okay.
00:40:01
Speaker
So finally, who do you think competed in the most matches of the night as chosen by the two of us? So, let's see. Probably StingDDP then, if that's the volume there. Okay. Third place.
00:40:21
Speaker
is a 19-way tie. Oh, jeez. We really distributed our votes this time. Yeah, we did. With one each, we have Arne Anderson, Brad Armstrong, David Arquette, Mike Awesome, Finley, Rick Flair, The Giant, Kevin Green, Scott Hall, Chris Jericho, Chris Canyon, Billy Kidman, Ray Mysterio Jr., Roddy Piper, Raven, Perry Saturn, Six, Ray Traylor, and Alex Wright.
00:40:53
Speaker
In second place, we have a five-way tie with two choices each. We have Chris Benoit, the British Bulldog, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, and Ivan Dallas Page. And finally, in first place, we actually, again, have a tie, three-way tie with four choices each. These guys were very reliable. We have Dean Malenko, Big Van Vader, and Sting.
00:41:22
Speaker
Makes sense. Now, like I said, back in the intro, in honor of our third anniversary, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the stats across all the shows that we've covered so far. Again, all the actual wrestling shows, not including Reddy's Rumble. Right. Appearances as a match competitor overall. You got a guess? I feel like it's got to be Sting or Flair.
00:41:48
Speaker
Flair has an advantage of being there from the beginning with Starrcade. You know, obviously there's gaps here and there where he's not wrestling. And basically once he gets in a top appearance, especially he's really reliable, and he's appearing since what, 86 is that first show he's on? 87 I think. Oh yeah, that's right. All right. In third place, we have Lex Luger with 22 appearances as a match competitor overall.
00:42:17
Speaker
In second place, we have Ric Flair with 26 appearances. And in first place, indeed, with 28 appearances, this is Sting. He shows up a little later than Flair, but then he has a lot of shows where he has more than one match. I think that really helps out his total. Right, that one show where he's in the Battle Ball and also in the Cam Cable turn as well.
00:42:46
Speaker
All right. Appearances as a match competitor in main events. What's your guess? I got to do it. It's got to be flair because he has that early lead. Yes. Ding has made events strings. He didn't make too long to get to main events, but he kind of comes in and out of them more than I think flair does, at least in the middle of years of the show. And even then flair, Chris takes back in like 27 on this series.
00:43:12
Speaker
The failure is probably going to be a guy that might sneak in there as well, like a Nash, but I'm not sure. So Ric Flair, you're going with your guess? Yes. Okay. In third place, we have Vader with six. Oh, okay. I think that's a factor of the shows we happen to have covered, but still that's a testament to his reliability as a competitor and scariness as a big dude. Yes, indeed. In second place, Sting with 11. Oh, okay.
00:43:40
Speaker
And in first place, indeed, is Rick Flair with 15 main event appearances so far as a competitor. As you pointed out, he has his early run on the Starrcade series that he's just in there all the time. It's like six or seven in a row, right? I believe we ended up finding that on every Starrcade that he was a competitor, he was in the main event, save one. Yeah. The only match he has on a Starrcade that is not a main event is him versus Bischoff. Yeah, but he has Bischoff, yeah.
00:44:09
Speaker
So Flair and Sting changed places there. Sting's got more matches, but Flair's at the top more often. So you can probably guess who's in first place on commentary. Yeah. That's obviously Tony Schiavone. Right. The sheer scale of the wind may surprise you, though. Okay. But first, who do you think's in second place overall? I feel like it's gotta be Heenan, because he was a good foil for a lot of people throughout the time. Okay.
00:44:38
Speaker
Well in third place is actually Bobby Heenan with 102 matches called so far.
00:44:46
Speaker
In second place is JR, with 104 matches called so far, so it's really close. We just happen to have done a good set of the shows where JR is lead commentator, but it was for the entire Russell Wars series. I think that really bolstered his total. And that tournament show as well. That 90, I think? 89. Oh, yeah, yeah, right, yeah. Because he was lead commentator, and he would switch with Terry Funk or Jim Cornett.
00:45:15
Speaker
And in first place is indeed Tony Schiavone with 182 matches called. So yeah, almost 80 more matches than his closest competitor. It makes sense, of course. There's a lot more WCW shows taking place in the 90s when he's the lead than in the 80s when he's not. Yeah. But even so, we've only covered three series, so I wasn't expecting the difference to be that huge. Yeah.
00:45:43
Speaker
All right. Referees. So looking at all referee appearances, whether they're initial ref replacements or what have you, who do you think's top? Ooh. Again, I'm always bad with refs, but Nick Patrick's using my go-to just because he's like the main referee for a lot. He's definitely all over the place once he comes into it. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.
00:46:06
Speaker
Well, in third place is actually a really unexpected name for me. I was not anticipating this one. Mike Atkins has 24 appearances as a referee. Second place is less surprising. Randy Anderson has 50 appearances.
00:46:23
Speaker
And first place is not surprising at all. That would be Nick Patrick with 66 appearances as a referee so far. The positions don't actually change at all if we use only in the initial ref appearances, by the way. Atkins stays exactly the same at 24. Anderson loses one appearance but stays in second place at 49.
00:46:42
Speaker
And Patrick loses a couple appearances but retains first place at 64. Oh, okay. It's interesting considering my mental perception of how many ref bumps there are and things like that, that these refs aren't actually losing that many appearances if I'm discounting that sort of appearance.
00:46:58
Speaker
I know there's one show we'll make, I think it's part of Bash at the Beach for cover, where one match is like all the refs get bumped at some point, so that'll throw the curve off for you, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, then Starrcade 99, that was the big one with Bret Hart and Goldberg with the, whoops, there goes another referee plant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. That would tick John off so much. Yeah.
00:47:24
Speaker
Uh, MVP choices now. Okay. So by hosts, we're going first. Al, who do you think you've chosen the most for MVP across all the shows we have watched? I mean, it's gotta be, I love Vader, but I feel like it's this volume, it's gotta be Sting. Okay. You are correct. All right. You have chosen Sting six times. Times about right. Yeah. Across all the shows that we've watched. And me? Who do you think?
00:47:56
Speaker
Uh... hmm. I don't know if he's top, but D.P. is a good go-to for sure. Okay. I'm gonna say Flair, but I'm not sure after the camera how much you would pick him on a show, but he's usually a pretty solid choice, yeah. Alright. It's actually a tie. Okay. With four choices each, I've given it most to Rick Flair and to Sting. Oh, okay. Do you remember John's?
00:48:24
Speaker
Oh, man. I want to say Glacier, but I know it's not right. He definitely did give it to him once. Yeah, he did, yeah. For the... For having a video package. Yes. On a terrible show. Yes, yes, absolutely. And I couldn't even argue with him about it. No, no, yeah. He was totally valid. Yeah. They got to tell him how weirdly that story played out on the seas. Yes. Oh, here's what this actually feels up to. Basically not much.
00:48:55
Speaker
Piper is probably going for him. I know you like Piper a lot. Okay. Though he only thought that may appear in today, so yeah, I'm not sure. All right. His is actually Dusty Rhodes. Oh, okay. With three MVP awards for John. That makes sense, yeah. Because Piper only has the two matches on Starrcade, if I remember correctly. We're the 83-96, right? 83-96. Yeah, I don't think he has another match. He has another appearance as a referee, and whoops, there goes another referee, Blanche. Right, right.
00:49:26
Speaker
And all of us together. So who do you think if we add up all of our votes, who gets the most MVP awards? I feel like it's gotta be Sting. He's just generally a good solid pick. And obviously I throw the curve off of it. All right, in third place is Diamond Dallas Page. Okay. He's gotten five MVP awards so far. Nice. In second place is Ric Flair, who has gotten eight.
00:49:54
Speaker
And in first place is Sting. A mighty 12 MVP awards for the man of the sparkly jacket. Yes. Yeah, and half of those come from you, yeah. Yes, I throw the curve off quite a bit. So yeah, actually we can tell exactly because I've got them both on this list here. So yeah, Sting, you gave him six of his choices. I gave him four of his choices. That means John gave him two. Yeah. Let's look at match of the night competitors.
00:50:24
Speaker
Again, we're going by host first. So, who do you think competed the most in your matches of the night? Solid pick for you to be Stinger Vader for me. Okay. This is familiar. Yeah. Sting got seven awards from you. For me? It's yours, Flair? I'm not sure. Indeed, actually. For me, it is Rick Flair. Okay. Who has six awards from me.
00:50:51
Speaker
And from John. Is it Sting again? He seems like a solid fake overall. It is not, but they do wear face paint. Oh, of course. They're warriors. Yep. John gave it jointly to the Road Warriors' hawk and animal four times. Ah, okay. He loves the Road Warriors. I think waiting him to watch their only appearance in the show is 96, right?
00:51:19
Speaker
Hawk has one more appearance together though. Yeah, I think they're only appearances together is fighting each other and not really fighting each other Yeah that yeah So all of us together who do you think has the most match of the night? competitor appearances as voted by the group So it's gotta be sting or flare. I would think then all right in third place
00:51:44
Speaker
Ricky the Dragon Steamboat has 11. Okay. Early shows for sure. He gets the advantage in that one. In second place, Rick Flair has 12. Mm-hmm. And in first place with 15 is Sting. Right.
00:52:02
Speaker
So that's interesting, but one other thing that's really fascinating to me is Tully Blanchard is still quite high up on the list. He's tied for fifth place with his eight match of the night appearances. Which one is the all blood show? That is 85. I was thinking it was 85. Yeah, 84 seemed too early. That's where he throws the cards out because he all picked that same match. Yeah, I believe so.
00:52:25
Speaker
But yeah, it's actually been two full series since the last time we gave Tully Blanchard match of the night, and only a few people have passed his total. I really have to wonder if when we start doing some AD shows again, if he might be able to reclaim the crown. It wouldn't take too much still. He's behind Sting by seven right now. There you go.
00:52:44
Speaker
For completion's sake, by the way, fourth place is actually a tie between Vader and Arne Anderson with nine each. Good picks. And tied with Blanchard for fifth place is Diamond Dallas Page with eight. I think that that's gonna break away, I imagine. Yeah, there's a good chance that he goes up further. With all the data out of the way, it's time to give some series awards.
00:53:08
Speaker
So each show we've rewarded our match of the night and MVP, but now we're going to look at things across the entire series. So to start off, we're going to go for our series MVPs. These are three people in no particular order. So Al, who are your series MVPs? All right. This obviously should not be a surprise. Doesn't end up in saying I have DDP.
00:53:38
Speaker
You always see his rise throughout the series, surviving whatever the whole battle bowl was, but was to take the attack, I would say, coming out of that, coming out better than most people did in that. Basically, solely from his early run, you have Vader. Okay. And of course you have, you know who it's going to be, Sting. Okay. All right. For me, I have Dean Malenko.
00:54:05
Speaker
St. Malenko of the Cloverleaf deserves this for his work alongside Brad America jacket Armstrong, rescuing me from the depths of lethal lottery despair on Slambry 96. But he also went on to have excellent matches on 97 and 98 as well, including perhaps the biggest pop of his career against Chris Jericho. And I'm not going to sell his 99 performance short either, though he stuck him with a crowd in the chaotic match. He had some really standout moments to help give the match a sense of strategy.
00:54:32
Speaker
So he's a reliably exceptional performer, but the series particularly highlighted that for me. Yeah, if I was doing four, I'd definitely have him and or Benoit for sure.
00:54:41
Speaker
Second for me, I'm going to agree with you, Diamond Dallas Page definitely takes one of these. His moments weren't as reliably awesome as Malenko's. In fact, the poor guy got saddled with a lot of crap in this series, from having to work his way through the Lethal Lottery and Battle Bowl, to seeing his world title reigns ended in criminally short times, to having to face off against an actor for the world title.
00:55:03
Speaker
But through it all, he puts on really strong performances and gives us all every single time he comes out to perform. He repeatedly manages to shine in the middle of moments that should have been disasters. It's a shame how frequently he has to fight through the show ideas in booking to make something good, but he manages to, time and again. And finally... Gordon Souley. Okay.
00:55:26
Speaker
The Hall of Fame segments were the highlights of the early Slamperies for me. And by far my favorite segments in the series. And Soli was a huge part in making those happen. Not just on screen, but off. The quintessential classic wrestling announcer, Soli gave these segments the honor and the dignity that they deserved. So it's only right that I give him some honor here.
00:55:48
Speaker
It's actually funny how our picks coincide because my pick of Vader and your pick of Soli only appear in the first three shows. Yeah, that's true. Otherwise, there's not much next to me, the two, but yeah. Yep. I'm sure Soli could manage a moonsault if he wanted to. Oh, yeah, yeah. I can picture Vader hosting a Hall of Fame ceremony. Yeah.
Worst Matches & Ego-driven Performances
00:56:09
Speaker
Probably murdering most of the guys accepting awards, but, you know, all the same. I could hear it's Hall of Fame time. Yeah.
00:56:19
Speaker
All right, next up, Al, your matches of the series. Okay. So again, three of them in no particular order, and please do name the Slamburys that they were on as well. Okay. I have the Sabrina 94 main event between Sting and Vader, which just by being for the WWE International giveaway title,
00:56:41
Speaker
And to be honest, the whole situation surrounding is kind of unfortunate because it's supposed to be a match with Rick Rube, who sadly, he gets his career ending injury. And his oddly successful title offense, he managed to work through that match. But then they had to sort of rewrite the show at the end to have that match. But it delivers. So it more than makes up for the chaos of it.
00:57:05
Speaker
As far as being a match that gives you a really good surprise as for the over-execution, I have the Larry Zwisko vs. Steven Regal match from 94.
00:57:15
Speaker
Because it's not a knock on either one of them, but that's not the match I expected to be as good as it was. And more importantly, I would say as dynamic as it was. Really? Yeah, yeah. Because it gets the crowd reaction. I actually really expected them to have a strong tent of a match, but to get the reaction and feel the crowd they do is what impressed me. Yeah, they were both on in that match really, really on.
00:57:37
Speaker
And since this, so basically running through the 90s representing the sort of edgier 90s wrestling we're dealing with, I went with the E.P. versus Raven from Survey Night 98. Oh, okay. The Cage deathmatch? Yes. Okay. It was a better balance of the spectacle and the match than say other matches like, you know, the main event of Summer 2000, which obviously I didn't like what you did, which is fine.
00:58:03
Speaker
And it had a little extra stuff in the match element itself, which puts it ahead of the other big cage match that happened before that, which is the Hollywood Blondes cage match. Right. Okay. But it was also really good. All right. This was such a hard choice. Yeah. There's loads of great matches across this series, and I actually had 15 matches in contention. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I just marathoned through those one night.
00:58:32
Speaker
First up, I have Dean Malenko versus Brad Armstrong. Makes sense. Lambrie 1996. I will say I held myself to one Malenko match as honestly he could have probably just filled up my entire list if I wanted to.
00:58:45
Speaker
and this one is my favorite of his matches on the series. It may not be the one that gets him the biggest pop of his career, that's on 98, but this is an absolute knee-work clinic with truly stellar sequences of holds and moves, bolstered by some excellent selling by Armstrong, who delivers some explosive moves of his own and proves he can hang with the best in the business.
00:59:05
Speaker
This match establishes the cruiserweight title as the source of amazing matches, and as a bonus, rescues the viewer from absolute boredom and despair coming where it does between lethal lottery rounds on the Battle Wall show. I will tell you that Milenko will appear in my ultimate car, because, you know, I'm not going to leave him off the car, obviously. The America jacket's a plus, too. Oh, yeah, sure. That bumps it in the top three right there, yeah. Yeah. Second up, I have...
00:59:32
Speaker
Regal vs. Dragon, Slambry 1997, one of the finest opening matches that we have ever seen. It's an enormously complex match with some stellar storytelling. Regal's repeated attempts at his Regal stretch and the way Dragon will bolt for the ropes to prevent that from getting locked on are real highlights, as are the creative holds both use and Dragon's exceptional strikes and aerial attacks, and Regal's usual excellent facial expressions as well.
00:59:58
Speaker
Throw in a genuinely interesting story with Dragon wanting to fight Regal fairly against the wishes of manager Sonny Ono, and you have a really great watch. The ending does seem a tad flubbed, but not in a way that really spoils anything. And even with that, this is one of the most enjoyable matches I've yet seen. And third, the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith versus Vader, Slambry 1993.
01:00:25
Speaker
This blew me away. Vader somehow managed to use his own indestructible, unstoppable reputation as a means of building up the bulldog for all sorts of crazy power stunts by the bulldog that made him look like a million bucks. All while never making Vader look weak. No.
01:00:43
Speaker
The match nailed a big fight feel and was a star-making performance for the Bulldog, who showed the crowd that he could hurl a guy the size of Vader, but Vader still looked like a monster and did not lose a step. DQ finished the side, and honestly, it does go well with the story as a sign of Vader actually recognizing how tough an opponent Bulldog is. Yeah, this was one heck of a spectacle.
01:01:05
Speaker
I will tell you there is a reason that will become clear later as to why I picked the Sting Vader match as good as it was over the Bulldog Vader match. And now, the awards nobody wants. First up, the least valuable performers. So the people that either didn't add anything or actively took away from the shows. With this one, I will let you pick up to three.
01:01:30
Speaker
I filled out three of them. I don't do any build-ups when I was picking my choices. I got a little creative with these and I can defend all of them, I think, though. Okay. Swear to God, one of the needs, no explanation, the prisoner from Slavery 1993. Choking, choking, and more choking.
01:01:51
Speaker
The fact that the guy has a match, he seems winded and out of breath oddly while he's choking someone else is really telling. Yeah. And the fact that it makes a bad Sting match is such a rare thing. Because even when he had that Short Squash match as part of the Wrestle Wars series with Baron Cheek, that was still better than that because the right person won Baron Square in that one. This is by far the worst Sting match we've had. Oh, yeah.
01:02:20
Speaker
Ah, my second choice is Stevie Ray. Okay. There's two factions involved. For me, when he was tagging with Booker T, he was a couple of times, which was a 95? 95, I think. 95, yeah. Where they managed to basically lose a handicap match to one half of the team. To Jerry Saggs. Jerry Saggs. Then, of course, he breaks away and has the visible match with Conan.
01:02:47
Speaker
And the other aspect to it is, so the story of the 99Slambray, one of them that is, is how both Diners help the other one win their respective titles. They interfere in those matches and they reunite officially. Meanwhile, DVRay is nowhere to be seen to help Booker T when he gets screwed up by them, so he's just a bad brother. Aww.
01:03:11
Speaker
if he had like a standard performance in one of the tag matches and if his other match wasn't so this, I wouldn't say bad, but it was awkward. They just have no chemistry together. That might slip by, but the sort of combination of that. And I'm like, and I want to fold three out to just be fair and like, yeah, I think that counts. Okay. Third one is, is one I picked because there actually would be.
01:03:37
Speaker
maybe a Dark Horse kind of series MVP, starting out the series, but then it takes such a turn in the later ones. It makes it so much worse for me because they're actually strong and they just get so bad. Oh, okay. Scott Steiner. Oh, okay.
01:03:52
Speaker
watch the early shows, he really delivers in those matches, like the tag match, even if it's not that important, that 97 tag match he's really good in. Isn't it Tumoris and... Conan, right? Conan, yeah, I think it's Tumoris. Yeah, Conan Tumoris. Right, and he and Rick are both good on the Battle Bull show, actually, as well. Mm-hmm. Then he becomes the Pop-Bump Scott Steiner, and his last appearances turn into
01:04:16
Speaker
Do Suplex, walk outside, yell at crowd for three minutes. Come back in the ring, do a Suplex, walk outside for two minutes. Yep. And he has that Buff Bagwell match where the general might want to blame Buff Bagwell for bad matches just by default. But you just can't with that. No. Yeah. Because that match is all Scott Stider beating him up and yelling at random crowd people. Makes the match feel so, so much longer.
01:04:40
Speaker
I can see where you're going with that. When you first started with your explanation, I was thinking the other person that you could apply it to is Conan. Sure. He has a really actually stellar match on 96. He does, yeah. One of my match of the series contenders, honestly. Sure, no, yeah. Against Liger. But then he has that match against Stevie Ray and you're like, what is going on? But yeah, no, I see where you're coming from in that. It's just such a sudden turn in his performance where it's like most D improved. Yeah, exactly.
01:05:10
Speaker
Mine, I share your disregard for this one person, the prisoner. Yes. I know the guy only showed up once, but if your one appearance is on the first show of the series and I'm already talking about how this may be in my worst matches of the series, you very much deserve this honor. It's worse because I really can blame just him for this. 100%. Sting gave his best in that match, but the prisoner just did so poorly it didn't matter. Yes.
01:05:36
Speaker
Second up for me, Brian Knobs. Jerry Sags gets a pass for me on this series. Knobs nearly ruins a surprisingly respectable 1995 match between Sags and Harlem Heat by coming into botch, botch, and botch again on the way to the end. He like totally messes up that ending.
01:05:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's true. And nearly kills Sherry in the process. Oh right, yeah, I forgot that. And later he has an absolute snoozefest against Bam Bam Bigelow on the 1999 show. Yeah. He is part of a kind of fun brawl on 1994, but that is not enough to save him from two bad performances. Understandable, yeah. And finally...
01:06:13
Speaker
Mark Madden. Oh, yeah. There you go. I dearly hope that the character Madden plays on Slammatory 2000 is nothing like his actual personality because the character he plays is an absolutely horrible human being. None of the commentary on Slammatory 2000 was particularly good, but Madden took a show that was already hard to watch and made it far, far worse pretty much every single time he opened his mouth.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah. It's only one show, but it affects the entire show. Right. It's the last taste in your mouth. So, yeah. Yeah. All right. Worst matches of the series. Okay. Again, pick up to three. Okay. What do we got? Right off the bat, we have, as mentioned both by us, the prisoner versus the sting. Yep. Because again, it's the worst sting match. It's so bad. Yeah. It's so, so bad.
01:07:04
Speaker
I had to really struggle to think of bad sting matches that we've covered so far. Because even people like Vampiro who lacks other deficits, I think that match was fine. It was fine, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
01:07:16
Speaker
I think the only other really bad Sting match I can think of is the one that several of us picked on Starrcade for worst match of the series, which was Sting and Hawk versus the Nasty Boys. Yes. That's probably second worst. Going back to Starrcade, though, you have the one where poor Flair's gotta wrestle like somebody else. True, yeah. And that just didn't live regardless of that. That one at least has some extenuating circumstances. Sting was a prisoner match, as we talked about before in the show. I'm not a big fan of Scott Norton.
01:07:45
Speaker
I don't think he's ruined a match. For me, he hasn't added that much. To admit, he's admittedly limited parents on the series so far. He's a generic big man. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't really do harm to anything, but he never really did. He's inoffensive. Yeah. So the fact that he was supposed to be in this match, for some reason he's not, it's a whole weird contract thing, apparently. The fact that I had to stop and go, I'd rather watch this gotten-orn match to tell you something. Yes. No offense to you forgotten. Just how I feel.
01:08:12
Speaker
previously mentioned as well, getting him into the situation. Conan versus DV Ray. Okay. It's you guys that can Russell obviously have different talent levels, I think, but they just don't work well together. And of course that ending is so hilariously botched. There was like, look away while we're stereo hops on DV Ray and runs the other wing past him and go, that was weird. Anyways.
01:08:40
Speaker
And lastly, for me, I had a pick between the two hardcore matches we had. It's like, which one I found worse. Okay. Cause one of them had to be in there and I think which one for me is the worst. Honestly, the one I'm going with is Terry Funk versus Norman Smiley and Ralphis. Okay.
01:08:59
Speaker
Both of them were bad, and both of them felt way too long. But there's a certain hilarious charm to the fact that they just fully messed up the ending of the Bambigolo Brian Knobs match, which just fully misses the table we both be gashing onto.
01:09:15
Speaker
And then, Bambam just sort of nonchalantly just takes the win that way. Yes. And he even like, he completely misses the table and in fact lands on Bambam Bigelow, who has to no sell the fact that he got landed on by the guy because he was supposed to miss. Yes. Yes. The 2001 is so much forced into comedy and Fraufus shouldn't, just shouldn't be there, period. Right. All right. For me.
01:09:42
Speaker
Again, we are in agreement. Sting vs. the Prisoner, Slambry 1993. An incredibly boring, basic match that somehow manages to be dull even when Sting is on offense, because Prisoner just has nothing other than lumbering around and trying to choke him, and has no idea what to do when Sting is attacking.
01:10:02
Speaker
back when we reviewed this i said i would be shocked if this match did not show up on my list of worst matches of the series and just a reminder again it was the first show of the series yes we watched that show what now eight months ago and it's still like nope that's really bad it is that bad yes second up
01:10:21
Speaker
Chris Candido versus the artist formerly known as Prince Ayakeya and Slambrey2000. That nearly made it for me. Holy crap, what a botch fest. Yeah. As I said at the time, the match they wanted to perform was okay, but what they wanted to do was not what they did. No. Which pretty much describes any individual spot in this match as well. Yes.
01:10:41
Speaker
Very little went right in this match, and some spots were just laughably bad. The mistimed ending could have actually been a mercy had they just stuck with that, but they boldly, foolishly forged ahead. Yes. They tried, bless them, but they failed. Mm-hmm. And third, now we discussed this actually during the course of the week, and I came down on the opposite side as to what I'm going to come down on right now. Oh, okay. Eric Bischoff versus Vince McMahon, Slambry 1998. Yeah.
01:11:10
Speaker
Some, including me earlier this week, might argue that this is not a match, but it has ring entrances, Michael Buffer on ring announcing duty, a referee, an opening bell, and a closing bell, so it counts. It is a match, and it is a horrible, entirely worthless waste of time that exists only for the purpose of patting Bischoff's fragile ego.
01:11:33
Speaker
It'd be on this list even if it had been contained to its own segment, but as a bonus, a simply insane amount of time is spent building up to it, dealing serious harm to an otherwise good slamboree. It's a petty, silly stunt that was meant to make the WWF look bad, but only succeeds in making Bischoff look like an idiot, and WCW look like his personal plaything rather than a legitimate rival to the WWF.
Best Commentary & Non-Match Segments
01:12:01
Speaker
But for the series overall, we've got some other awards to hand out. So first up, best commentary team. Which commentary team did you enjoy the most?
01:12:12
Speaker
First, I'll start with the trio, and then I'll explain the show itself. It's hard to go wrong with Tony, Dusty, and Bobby, just no matter what. I almost wanted to give it for 96th Slamboree, like them trying to do their best to make entertaining. The one I won with was actually 97th Slamboree. Well, it wasn't my favorite show in the series because it felt like
01:12:35
Speaker
a big televised house show where some sort of did happen, but otherwise it was like not as important because I think they're trying to find the balance of how much big stuff should happen on TV for ratings that much happened there. So it's an enjoyable show as we discussed, but it feels skippable unless you just want to enjoy the matches themselves.
01:12:57
Speaker
But for them, they had so much fun calling that because of the sort of carefree, house show kind of vibe of it, that they're still the most unshackled, I guess. They may be freest, I'd say, doing that.
01:13:11
Speaker
We all know that Tony, Bobby, and Dusty is my favorite WCW announced team. I think I've made that abundantly clear. Yes. But for this series, there is one team that comes out ahead. Oh, I know it is already. That is Tony Schiavone and Larry Zabiska from Slambry 93.
01:13:27
Speaker
The two were just in their element, with Tony flashing back to a time when he was just a fan and hadn't yet entered the business himself, able to talk about the wrestlers he watched before he became part of the act, and Larry pulling out all the stops to honor the past of professional wrestling and praise his fellow performers, and occasionally himself.
01:13:46
Speaker
Very often himself, yes. Together, the two pulled out countless tidbits and were full of facts and praise about wrestling history, and it was a joy to hear them having so much fun taking a trip down memory lane. Yeah. And definitely, as noted, close second Tony Bobby Dusty, and I would probably agree with you, I think 97 was the stronger show for the trio, but Larry and Tony just seemed to be having such a golden good time going back over their own history.
01:14:14
Speaker
Going back and rewatching the main event of that show for comparison. Absolutely. You can see that. Best promos or non-match segments. So were there things other than matches that stood out to us across the series and you can name up to three. All right. So I have the early on bit where they have stink him out to explain why he's not just taking the title, the bit with the Shawning Vader. I thought really well. Yeah. Yeah. I remember liking that one a lot.
01:14:42
Speaker
Cause that helped explain why this match is happening as our main event and it's necessary legwork they had to do. I thought it was done quite well. Yeah, absolutely.
01:14:52
Speaker
Secondly, I have the non-match, but almost a match, bit from 1997, Slambree with DDP and Randy Savage, which is basically there to promote future matches, but was an enjoyable segment overall, I thought. Put the two big stars on the show, even if they didn't have a matte form in that situation.
01:15:14
Speaker
And lastly, I've someone forgotten this because it's connected to a match that I don't really want to remember all that well, but the debut of the master at Slamfrey 1995. Nice.
01:15:29
Speaker
After a very unforgettable match with Ed Leslie, aka the man with no name, versus Kevin Sullivan, we finally get to see the face behind the strained, booming voice. That is Sullivan, my son. Oh my gosh, yes. They try to sell it like it's the hushed, shocked silence of the crowd, but it's more the hushed, huh? Of the crowd.
01:15:53
Speaker
I just don't know what's going on here. I remember both of us just being so enjoyably surprised by that being on the show. Yeah, neither of us had any clue that was where this started. Yeah. I couldn't quite count the giant making his early appearances where he kind of walks out because that happens during a match. So yeah, fair, fair. And it's sort of like, who's that guy? And then he walks back out. That stands out for me as well.
01:16:20
Speaker
I was at war with myself on this set. There's actually a lot of fun, non-match content on this series. We had some great 1995 promos from Flair, Vader, and Anderson, and a wonderfully lunatic promo on the same show by Hogan and Savage. Oh yeah, that's true. We had fun promos on 1993 from Red Bastine and Bugsy McGraw, where they're making fun of Eric Bischoff, and the Crusher and Ox Baker, him of the incredible facial hair. Yes.
01:16:47
Speaker
We had that great promo from 1994 where Luthez and Fern Gandhi made clear their disapproval of hardcore wrestling. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's good. I still can't believe they brought them out after that. I don't know who they did that was. That's a bad idea. We had Jericho's ring announcing. Yeah. We had Saturn's awesome rebellious speech on 1998. There's plenty more throughout the series, but you may know where this is going. Okay.
Hall of Fame & Gimmick Matches
01:17:11
Speaker
My top three non-match segments are
01:17:14
Speaker
Hall of Fame 1993, Hall of Fame 1994, and Hall of Fame 1995. The honor paid to the legends of pro wrestling was the best thing about this series by far and none of the rest of the non-match stuff could overwhelm the genuine feeling of these segments for me. They were brilliant and I really wish they'd been continued all the way through.
01:17:37
Speaker
Well, it's interesting because it happened three years in a row. You can see them figuring how to do this segment better as well. Yeah. First of all, they come out to the ring and then they stand there holding their trophies. By the end, they figured, let's have ourselves a stage that can come out and sort of stand next to it. Yeah, I knew we could show some videos probably and have them give a speech and stuff. Yeah. You can see it sort of worked out throughout there. I really thought about it. I was just like, okay, maybe I can drop one of them. And I was like, which one do I drop?
01:18:02
Speaker
And I just, I couldn't pick one. So that's what decided it for me. I was like, I either have to cheat by doing two completely separate lists, or I just had to admit to myself, this is the best non-match stuff. I will say, and this is kind of a, arguably a first world kind of problem, but I miss the more segmented aspects they had on Theoretal WWE Network before Peacock. Yes, me too. There's a lot of good stuff to do with that.
01:18:29
Speaker
And I'm not getting the whole, they cut things here and there or music stuff. Cause that was happening on the network as well. Let's see what we get, but it's harder to go. Oh, where is this interview segment here? Just big clumps on the screen where the lines are where the whole segment and match together. It's hard to, where there's definitely more segments before you could watch every segments.
01:18:51
Speaker
That's where I probably have a slight advantage because I do the overall show notes for every show. Exactly. I just scrolled through my show notes. No, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, no, I totally agree on that. It's easier to find matches because that tends to be where they put the ads. Yes. Right now, it's structured purely around the matches. And I also missed the ability to search for matches, but it was the same as well. Definitely an inferior service. Yeah.
01:19:17
Speaker
Not all matches are the usual sort of singles or tag match. So what's your favorite gimmick match on the series? It was a struggle picking between either the tag team cage match from the first Lambrey, Dos Ombres, High End, the Hollywood Blondes, or the DP Raven one. As I said before, picking the latter for my matches of the series, that the little extra stuff they had with the hardcore elements
01:19:45
Speaker
And using them in good ways, because DDP's match binder, I'm sure, had everything segmented exactly where you pause, then use weapons, especially compared to the hardcore matches, where it just constantly pick up whatever's near you and hits them with it. For location of garbage cans, see figure 17A? Exactly, yeah.
01:20:02
Speaker
And maybe it's not, maybe it's not fair to compare the random heif to the With Trashcan lids matches to that, but there's a lot of overlap there because they worked into the match. That one I felt executed a more complicated gimmick match in a way that worked. For mine, I will admit this one's a little bit thin on the gimmick side, but I think it still counts as it is an ODQ match.
01:20:27
Speaker
Flare Piper in green versus the NWO no DQ six man tag. Okay. Slimbury 1997.
01:20:34
Speaker
It's an ODQ six-man tag match with a football player in it, so I'm calling that gimmicky. And boy, was it fun. Flair and Hall make excellent faces at each other. Piper stands up in the face of NWO mockery. Nash looms large over everyone in the match. Six throws some great kicks and maybe does the biggest sell of Flair's chops that I've ever seen. And Green hurls his entire body at anyone in sight in a way that really did make me wonder if anyone had clued him in that wrestling was not in fact a real fight.
01:21:03
Speaker
It's really an amazing watch and everyone seemed on in the best way possible. The crowd was super hot for it and the ending was picture perfect. I really enjoyed this one even if I do pity six for having to take some of those leaping forearms from green in his face. What was that great, great bit where the four of them are in the ring and the people you can't see at this point are green and six.
01:21:24
Speaker
And then suddenly Green walks Ick into the hard camera shot in the lower frame because he's outside the ring. And he's just double armed throttling Six. He's like walking forward with him. Like, oh, there he is. Six at some point got assigned as Green's manager for the evening. You keep track of him, make sure he's in the right place at the right time, and let him just pound you in the face whenever possible. I forget, that one they treat as otherwise a regular tag match, right? And it's not a tornado match officially.
01:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a tornado match, but it is no DQ, I believe, is the role on it. Now, that is a big obvious question, and they probably asked the question in the match itself. If you come in illegally, what's the consequences? Yeah, basically, yeah. The only consequence is your pins aren't legal, I guess, so the right has to still only count the legal man's pins, but yeah, it's always a question when you try and mix tag rules and no DQ or cage matches and stuff. That's always a bit of a mess.
01:22:18
Speaker
See your your favorite match, the four-way tag team match. We haven't gotten one of those yet. No, no. Oh, I look not forward to that at all. Yes. All right. Do you have a worst type of gimmick match? I do. Attable. OK. I mean, if you want to look at it as the tag matches, that's fine. The random tag matching is suddenly is a gimmick of it. Oh, yeah, sure.
01:22:46
Speaker
Or just the Battle Royal, which I think may the Battle Royal is probably the second best Battle Royal on its own. I think the first one maybe gets a little heavy because it's saved by the ending when you get the good sting. When you suddenly get to the singles match. But at the same time, that's so, so long before you get to that point. And it makes so little sense. Yeah.
01:23:07
Speaker
That's the one we're remembering, where you have to be thrown from ring one into ring two, and then thrown out of ring two, but not back into ring one to be eliminated. Which sounds like a John Mattry gimmicking, but is it back to actual stipulation of a real Matt that happened? Oh, go. More than once, yeah.
01:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, I just think that's entirely fair. You could either look at it, like you said, is the entire gimmick or even just looking at the lethal lottery part of it. Lethal lottery tag match is a type of gimmick match. That known here is battle bowl, all of it. Yeah. I do have to ask as a curiosity, do you feel like you have a particular one of the lethal lottery matches that you would say is the worst? I try to block a lot of that out, honestly.
01:23:53
Speaker
Maybe the first or second match with Duggan and, who's he with? Well, he's definitely- Wall Street. He's like a Wall Street, he's gonna return to his actual name.
01:24:04
Speaker
I know they try to stick story stuff in them, but the match itself, parts of it's actually pretty bad. Likewise, and they feel bad because they feel involved, but the whole Eaton and Slater pairing, their styles didn't really match with their opponent or anything like that, yeah. If I were defining one, I'd probably pick the Road Warriors one. There is that as well. Just because it completely fails to use the gimmick. I can absolutely see that. Best is obviously where Public Enemy beats Rick Flair when he's savage.
01:24:33
Speaker
I mean, come on. It's definitely the shortest. Yes. The later days, hardcore matches were awful. Sure. Bigelow versus Knobs on 99 and Smiley Ralphis versus Funk from 2000 were just terrible, terrible matches. Both were just incredibly boring and consisted of nothing but guys mindlessly hitting each other with objects with no sense of plot or strategy.
01:24:56
Speaker
Between those, if I'm forced to pick just one of the matches, I would go with Smiley Ralfus versus Funk like you said earlier for making me see much more of Ralfus than I ever wanted to. Right. Even outside of that aspect, he didn't bring anything else to the match itself either. Yeah. He just hung around watching Norman Smiley get beat up and then occasionally delivered a woeful trashcan shot that Funk just ignored. Yeah.
01:25:18
Speaker
There was at least some humor in that, in at least the one part when he's no cells and completely agitated by the whole thing. But yeah, it was definitely the worst match of the two for sure. So here's a fun one. The best performer with a single slamboree appearance. Who was it that you really would have loved to see again the most? There's a lot of good choices in there as looking at your giant list of many, many people. Yes. In fact, double the meaning of life. So that's a lot of people.
01:25:49
Speaker
And I think for me, because his first match was so good, and unfortunately I know how history does not work in his favor so we don't get more of them, it's the British Bulldog. Okay. That's a very, very fair pick, yeah. Yeah. He's exceptional when he first shows up on there. Absolutely.
01:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of good options for this one. Some really big names show up only once, as we discussed. And I really should probably say British Bulldog as well, because he was completely awesome. But I'm actually going to say Yuji Yasurayoka. Ah.
01:26:25
Speaker
I could almost give him most improved despite him only being on one show, because I had this real arc with his performance. At the start of the match, I'm totally thrown by his style, not expecting him to wrestle the way he did. He fought like he was a bigger wrestler. But he really put in a lot of character work. He had some standout moves, and he told a good story with Rey Mysterio. So by the end, I really thought he was quite good, and I was really disappointed to hear that he wasn't in WCW for very long.
01:26:50
Speaker
Literally, this is that one match. Yeah, like that's that's his only big match. Yeah. And it really felt like he would have been a good addition to their show. Yeah. So I'm going to give it to him. But I'm thrilled that you picked Bulldog because I was really thinking I should pick him as well. So I'm glad one of us did. Well, as you know, I do literally anything I can to avoid trying to pronounce his last name. Yeah, that's also helpful for me in that regard. Good point. Good point. It's just a mouthful.
01:27:17
Speaker
most improved so is there anyone you thought was not too great when they first showed up but later on they really improved and they turned things around so i'm not gonna say he was bad at the beginning but if you're looking at the series as a whole
01:27:30
Speaker
It has to be Diamond Dallas Page. Okay. Because he's a guy, a storyline, he's not even supposed to be in that match. They wrote out a guy with a fake injury to put him in the match, and then he finds, you know, sneaky ways to get through and survive. Then he introduces the thing that Fettable really needed the whole time, pin falls. Yes. That would have helped. We assume we sped the process quite a bit.
01:27:54
Speaker
By the end, you have him as full cocky bad guy heel, trying to be his own flair in a lot of ways in the 99 match. As overbooked as the ending of that is, he's still really good at it, as I said at the time. And obviously he's seen as the guy that could book the insanity of the triple cage match of Doom around. So nothing else by the company standards. He's absolutely the most improved. Okay. Yep.
01:28:23
Speaker
I am making, I think, a kind of similar choice, but not the same person. All right. But just like you, I want to emphasize that this guy's actually pretty good already when he shows up. So it's less that he improves and more that he just finally gets to be himself on a later show. Okay.
01:28:38
Speaker
My pick is Chris Canyon. Okay. So in the early shows, he's saddled with kind of a silly gimmick, though he makes the most of it. And he only makes brief appearances. He gets a short match with a quick DQ ending, a post-match attack, an interference spot. So it's not until 2000 that he actually gets to show what he can do. And when he does, he's excellent. Yeah.
01:28:57
Speaker
Once they finally let Canyon be Canyon, he proves himself an innovative and interesting performer with likable personality who brought some moments of honest-to-goodness enjoyment to Slamberry 2000, which is an achievement. Yeah. With his match with Mike Awesome. And he's actually a good promo as well. Yeah, it was. Absolutely. And now, the best and worst Slamberries.
Best & Worst Slamborees
01:29:23
Speaker
So I want you to pick your worst three and then your best three. Okay.
01:29:29
Speaker
So worst three, I've got Slumber 2000 because it's just so poorly booked across the board. As we said on the show, the whole theme of it is taking interesting people, Hogan, Flair, what have you, and literally sucking all the interest and color out of them and their attire. Yes, quite literally taking them, taking all the color out of their performance. Flair has no robes. Flair is wearing his dress pants and everything. And they're all black. Yes.
01:29:57
Speaker
Hogan's F-U and B stuff. But none of good matches to elevate it other than the sheer bizarre spectacle of the ending match. Obviously, Seminary Night 96 is on there because it's Battle Ball. We've made that very clear. It's not a good show.
01:30:15
Speaker
That's it. It has a few highlights, but you really have to endure a lot to get them, whether it's the match you like with the Milenko and I'm strong or the main event. All three singles matches on that show are good. Yes, exactly. Yeah. There's a little bit here that was just not enough to get across. Yeah. All three singles matches are good, but there's 15 matches on the show. Yeah. Yeah. So that's 12 matches that you have to slog through to get those.
01:30:42
Speaker
And in fitting with the somewhat original theme of the series, I had to pick a worst one of the Hall of Fame one. I tried to be fair with that. So for me, the worst one of those is 95, I think. It's the one that kind of strips back the Hall of Fame stuff so much. I can see that. And there's enough so-so to knock good matches on there as well. I think there's less on there for me. Okay.
01:31:06
Speaker
As far as bestSlamburys, I gotta say that it's not the most important storyline-wise, but 1997Slamburys is a fun watch. Yeah. It's a fun, enjoyable show. There are some stakes, but otherwise it's just there to be enjoyable. The best balancing of the two I thought for me is 1998Slamburys, but that does it really well throughout it.
01:31:28
Speaker
And I'm still a little torn because there's parts on both shows I don't like, so I'm kind of torn between picking 93 Slambry or 94 Slambry as the best of the Hall of Fame ones. Okay. I can go back and forth on them honestly. Probably a little more towards 94, but I could see strong case 93 depending on my look at it. Yeah. You had a little bit more problem with the matches on 93 as I recall. Yes.
01:31:53
Speaker
So for my worst three, I have Slambury 1996. Battle Bull. Battle Bull show. Yeah. Just an unholy number of tag matches. And while most were actually kind of acceptable on their own, they were just far, far too similar to each other in concept. And due to the sheer number of them, none had any time to breathe and develop into anything more interesting. Yeah. It's incredibly important in the rise of DDP and it has some really, really good singles matches. In fact, all of the singles matches on it were in contention for my matches of the series.
01:32:23
Speaker
But the lethal lottery is just lethal to your enjoyment of the show overall. Yeah.
01:32:28
Speaker
Slamberry 1999. After a fun but bocce opener, this one falls off a cliff with some truly awful matches and just never really recovers. Later matches on the show can be some fun if you're able to give them a chance, but it's hard to do so when you're in such a foul mood from watching the abysmal match 2 and 3 and nothing's ever really strong enough to pull you out of that bokwinkle funk.
01:32:55
Speaker
add loads of interference, overcomplicated finishes, and confusing rules, a bizarre performance by a normally solid commentary team, and an absolutely insane number of completely pointless video packages. And it just comes out to a confusing mess of a show. It has its moments, but you really have to hunt for them. That's 999WSW in a nutshell. Yeah, pretty much.
01:33:17
Speaker
And Slamboree 2000. It is an improvement from 1999 on the promo and video package front, but it's a downgrade from an already bad show in almost every other way. Okay. Commentary is awful and frequently offensive. The matches are filled with botches. It has to be the botchiest show that we've watched for Let's Go to the Ring. I think so, yeah.
01:33:38
Speaker
Angles are just stupid. The biggest one is frequently, and admittedly slightly unfairly, credited with the demise of the entire company. As we said on the show, it's unquestionably boneheaded, but WCW putting the title on an actor did not kill the company by itself. It did plenty of other stupid things in 2000. But it definitely contributed. And even if the rest of the show had been awesome, this would have been a strong contender for worstSlamberese based purely off of that.
01:34:04
Speaker
What if you considered, again, we talked about before, the beginning of the series is, let's honor the champions and forms of the past. Now here's our world champion, David Arquette. Yeah. It turns out. And the rest of the show was not awesome. So here it is. True. It's also worth noting, by the way, that 1999 and 2000 are the only Slamperies which had zero matches in contention for my matches of the series. Oh, wow. Yeah. And now my best Slamperies.
01:34:32
Speaker
Slamboree 1993. The first show established the really wonderful Hall of Fame concept and paid honor to the Legends of Pro Wrestling. How much you like it will depend quite a bit on how much you like the Legends content, particularly the multiple matches they get on the show, but for my part, I found it a lot of fun. And even if Bachwinkle Funk was admittedly overlong, I still actually enjoyed finding the bits of complexity that those two actually worked into their match. I just wish they'd gotten like half the time.
01:35:02
Speaker
Other than Legends content, we got a ton of mostly fun matches with only one really bad match and one that's not good, but is over in a flash. Uh, Sid Vicious versus Van Hammer is like one move. Pretty much. Yeah. It's a really fun show and it honors wrestling history.
01:35:19
Speaker
I made no attempt to distribute my choices, so Slamberry 1994 also gets a vote from me. Okay. Similar to 1993, it's just a fun show that's very respectful of wrestling's past. It turns back the Legends content a bit versus the prior year, but still ends up a very good combination of past and present.
01:35:36
Speaker
literally in the case of one of the Legends matches, which pits past star Larry Zabisco versus current star Steven Regal, and serves to prove that both are great. The present wrestler content is frequently really good, with again only one match that I thought was actually bad. It feels almost like the evolution of the formula that they were establishing with 93, making everything just a touch smoother. Yeah. Twiling a little more towards that, I think, up to, but yeah, I think it's your point. And finally, Slamberry 1997. Yeah.
01:36:06
Speaker
While this lacks the Hall of Fame content of my other favorites, I think this is the best pure wrestling show on the series, with very good matches, some from an action standpoint, some from a character standpoint, and many from both. The promo content was very light, but the matches were strong, and we even got some great performances out of Celebrities, with Reggie White and Kevin Green both putting on really fun shows. It's just plain fun to watch.
01:36:31
Speaker
If I were recommending one show from the series and just telling you, put it on, watch it, you'll have fun. It's the one I pick. I can see that. Finally, in honor of the Hall of Fame ceremony, I would like us each to make a suggestion. What 1980s WCW performer or Jim Crocker promotions as well should be included in a hypothetical 1996 class of the WCW Hall of Fame. So Al, who's your suggestion?
01:37:01
Speaker
Alright, so he does actually appear as one of the legends on the show, but is not inducted Hall of Fame. Okay. Magnum TA. Okay. I mean, I don't think I have to explain that. It's Magnum TA. You should be on there. Yep. If they done 96, you definitely, I feel like it would have been in there. Alright. We have an interesting situation. Uh-huh. Because my choice also...
01:37:22
Speaker
as Magnum DA. There you go. We really loved him when we saw him, but we only got to see him in his full wrestling capacity one time. But he did remain a strong personality in future shows, and he's someone that I really hope we get to see again when we go back to that era. Just was an incredible performer, the time that we saw him against Blanchard and his promo afterwards, so wonderfully intense. Yeah.
01:37:47
Speaker
in the interest, though, of us having multiple suggestions. I'm going to make one more suggestion because I did have a second one in mind in case we picked the same one. All right. I'm going to go with Ricky Steamboat. Oh, yeah. He's also all over the promotion in the 80s, has some excellent, excellent matches, is a stellar performer.
01:38:07
Speaker
And even though he does come back in the 90s as well, I consider him more that era of performer. And I think there's no debate that at some point he would have ended up in the Hall of Fame. Because memory serves his career, unfortunately, for a while, anyways, ends in 94, right? Yes. He's going to wrestle Austin in the half.
01:38:28
Speaker
And you're gonna come back until 2007 or 2008 with that match, and then follow-up match with Chris Jericho that surprised a lot of people. Right. And a lot of his big, big, big moments are 80s moments. Yeah. Like the Flair Steamboat series that everyone thinks about, that's 89, right? Yeah, at least so.
01:38:44
Speaker
So I could absolutely see the argument that if they got 96-1, you would have an extra year separating his unfortunate retirement, and he might be in more of a mood to take a Hall of Fame thing. The only time we would think, okay, now I'm definitely retired, at least, you know, for now and doing that. And admittedly, not everyone that was in the Hall of Fame.
01:39:04
Speaker
was even fully retired. I mean, Dusty Rhodes gets it and goes on to have more matches after that, not as frequently. And Terry Funk gets in it one year after being a part of major angles in there too. In fact, I think, if I remember correctly, Dusty's last WWE match is chosen seven, I believe. Yeah.
01:39:24
Speaker
like I see Blanchard in there if... Yes. In his mind, he would not retire, that's the thing. Right. He was wrestling way into the late 90s as well. Yeah. As Dusty Rose would put it on, I believe, 94, I'm not a legend, I'm in my prime. I've forgotten that promo in my list as well. That was actually really fun. That was, yeah. But yeah, I'm honestly thrilled that both of us thought of Magnum TA first. I was looking at him like, he must have been picked right then. I went through, no, he wasn't picked.
01:39:52
Speaker
I couldn't even take our name, but when I said they had a female performer, they got also inducted. I think they do induct one maybe, or one or two? I don't think they actually induct one. They talk about it. They welcome some out to the ring in some opening ceremony stuff, but I don't think it has an actual induction. Yeah, I think you're right. I think there's like a reference to like Mildred Burke, I think our name is. But yeah, it must not have been inducted then, okay. Yeah. That'd be nice to see as well. That would be, yeah.
01:40:17
Speaker
We've given our awards and analysis, but there's one more thing we'd like to do here to have some fun with this, our ultimate slamboree cards.
Ultimate Slamboree Cards & Creative Concepts
01:40:28
Speaker
So as a refresher, here's the rules for ultimate cards. Each of us will design a Slamboree card featuring eight matches drawn from the actual Slamboree matches. We can only use each performer as a competitor once. So someone can show up as a manager or commentator or interference or some other role on other matches, but you can only use them once as an actual competitor. Correct. So for instance, if you picked Sting versus Giant from Slamboree 96,
01:40:55
Speaker
You couldn't use any other match where either was a competitor, but you could still use Lex Luger in another match because he's only a manager in Sting vs Giant. That's true. You can use any match in any position. You're not required to pick an actual main event for your main event.
01:41:11
Speaker
opening match is the tag team match, Dos Ombre's versus the Hollywood Blondes, the tag titles. I enjoyed that match quite a bit. Even, you know, the fact that it's fake Shane Douglas, it's still very enjoyable. Then that final dozy doe counter-running as well, which I liked. Following that up, I have the technical match of Laze Biscoe versus Stephen Riegel. Big change from that sort of chaotic crash match you had there.
01:41:36
Speaker
following up with Demolinko versus Jeff Jarrett for the US title, which was a solid match. Because I felt like I need to have legend content in some way, I picked what I thought was the most economical version to have one match physically to have and cover it. The six-man match with Dick Murdock, Dom Morocco, and Jimmy Snooka versus Wahoo McDaniels, Blackjack Mulligan, and Jim Brunzel.
01:41:58
Speaker
It was a fairly short match, everyone came in, could do the move they could still do, they got the pop for their appearance, and they got out. And it was pretty fun. No, it wasn't a bad match, absolutely. But I guess the most people in there, like I said, just ridin' my youth for most of them, have to come and do the move, and everyone's happy. And number five was a match that I can't leave them off the show, and it was actually a really good match. So I have Eddie Guerrero versus Ultimo Dragon. Oh, okay.
01:42:22
Speaker
having my second gimmick match of the show, I have the DDP vs. Raven hardcore cage match from the Emperor 98. And then I have a double main event, which means, of course, there's no main event, as people have to say. But regardless, and I can kind of make this work, the headcanon for this is that
01:42:41
Speaker
This is less of a, as much as they're both fitting titles, as they're basically building up to a match between the people that survived these matches. Okay. So that's why I can have the world title appear twice. Okay. But not the same people. I have Vader versus the British Bulldog. Okay. But suddenly it's for the W3 World title. And I have Sting versus the Giant, which is also for the W3 World title.
01:43:04
Speaker
Okay. Going back, that's why I included the really good Sting Vader match. Because I wanted to have both on there, and I couldn't, so I might compromise here. The other advantage of this is... So, remember who wins these matches? You have Vader who changes tile by DQ, and Giant who wins through lots of shenanigans. So that means, in this theoretical show, we have a match between Vader and the Giant. Nice. I look forward to, not really. That would actually be really cool.
01:43:33
Speaker
Yes. Sadly timing never worked out for that match to my knowledge. So the fact that I can pretend like it happened for this makes it a little better. Yeah. Especially if that was happening in the 96 giant period where he's like super agile. Oh, that'd be cool. Oh, and sorry, I forgot to mention one other thing that we mentioned was picking one of the hall of fame's for the show. Uh, yes. Uh, so for me, I have the 95 hall of fame. I think it's the most streamlined and has, that's a nice little twist at the end where they give solely his induction. We didn't, we're not expecting. Okay.
01:44:04
Speaker
There are a lot of similarities between our cards. They're not the same, but there's a lot of similarities. Okay. So I have as first match, Arne Anderson versus Alex Wright, Slambry 1995. That's a good one. Just really liked establishing the new guy performance there. Sure. For my Legends match, I did just decide to call this one my Legends match. Okay. Larry Zabisco versus, actually I almost called him William Regal, sorry. It's a hard one. Larry Zabisco versus Steven Regal, Slambry 94.
01:44:34
Speaker
Then I also picked Hollywood Blondes versus Dos Ambres, Slambry 1993, that's just a stellar, stellar match. Fourth up, Dean Malenko versus Brad Armstrong, Slambry 1996, my favorite of the Malenko matches. I should say, I also really liked the Jarrett match, that's excellent, but this was just my- Oh no, yeah, I understand the place it has for you, absolutely.
01:44:56
Speaker
At that point, I decided my Hall of Fame ceremony would take place, and that I also picked Slamberry 95. I agree it's the strongest of them in terms of presentation, and it's the one that honors Gordon Soli, so I really felt like that one needed to be on there. That moment and his reaction to it stick with me, and will stick with me forever. Dusty Glover is the surprise form as well, really cool, I thought.
01:45:20
Speaker
Fifth, the Bowery Deathmatch, DDP versus Raven. I agree, that totally deserves a place on the card. That's just a really unique gimmick match. Six, I had the British Bulldog versus Vader, Slambry 1993.
01:45:35
Speaker
Seventh, let's get some really fun chaotic action in there with Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, and Kevin Green versus Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and six. Slippery 1997 six man tag. That gets the celebrity involvement in there. Oh, that's true. To do. And finally.
01:45:53
Speaker
the Giant versus Sting, Slambry 1996. And in my case, the justification was slightly different on Earth 9300. This was for the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship, the way that Sting Vader was in 94 in our reality. So that explains why it's able to be on the same show for World title. I mean, Mike could easily have the classic, you know, champion strip the title, then comes back, I didn't lose a title, blah, blah, blah, you know, that all works.
01:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to try out various themes of the show, and I think you kind of had the same idea in mind. I went for honor for the legends with Zabisco versus Regal, getting over new talent with Anderson versus Wright and Sting versus Giant, and celebrity involvement with Flair Piper Green versus the NWO. Gotcha.
01:46:36
Speaker
You might notice that there's absolutely no matches on there from Slamboree 1999 or 2000. It's probably not a surprise. Yeah. I did, I will admit, briefly consider the Triple Cage match from 2000, but I think DDP versus Raven and the Bowery Deathmatch was a better way to get DDP on the card. Agreed, yeah. You can't take any of mine or 99, 2000. So, Al, you said you found a list of the matches that were on, this was like a best of Slamboree's.
01:47:06
Speaker
Long ago, before we was, this is even an idea we were doing, I was at a thrift store somewhere and I found a VHS tape. It was the best of Slamboree. Okay. This is when I think we were still, we started watching them just together, but wasn't a podcast thing. I still have it. So I went through it. I figured I'd see how much overlap is on their best of Slamboree versus ours. Okay.
01:47:28
Speaker
And also just like ours, for different reasons, there's no consideration for 99 or 2000 because the tape was released before Slavery 1999. Okay, so that still had not happened yet, so there's no way they're on there.
01:47:44
Speaker
They have seven matches. Mind you, it's basically a clip show format because it's an hour. Okay. Because they did not spring for the EP tape, the SP tape. So it's just about an hour to show and talk about a bunch of stuff on there.
01:47:59
Speaker
It sprinkled in with me and team doing introductions and occasionally wrestlers inducting the matches that they think are important. Oh, okay. On there. They have the chaotic tag match of Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan against Nasty Boys. Okay. They have Sting versus Vader from Slamberry 94. Okay. They have the main event of Slamberry 95, the tag match of Vader and Flair versus Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. All right. Because of course, Hogan's got to be on there somewhere. Well, yeah.
01:48:27
Speaker
Unlike us they have the as in kayfabe picked by the winner of said match. They have the battle royale portion of battle bowl picked by dp backstage I'm not sure if that I would ever agree. That's a best of slamberry, but it's definitely one of the most important moments. Yes memory They have match you picked the flare Piper green versus NDO match. Okay
01:48:52
Speaker
Unlike us, they have the Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart match that I'd actually forgotten existed until this very moment. Yes. Which in the story is picked by Randy Savage, which is odd because of how it plays out. Yeah.
01:49:05
Speaker
I think he has some impact on picking the tag match as well because Hogan could not be bothered to appear on this tape anyway. So Savage has got to do that as well. And lastly, they have, for the main event of their tape, Raven versus DDP in the Bower Deathmatch. Okay. So more of a lot than you might think, actually. Yeah, there's definitely some similarities there for at least matches we liked as well. Yes.
01:49:30
Speaker
I'm trying to think back over it. I don't think there's really any absolute stinkers on there. No. There's a couple matches we didn't like as strongly, but... 95 is overbooked and has a silliness to it because there's 95 Hogan matches. But it's still a reasonable performance. No, yeah. I remember us saying, like, we were afraid they was going to treat Vader like crap, but he actually still feels like Vader. He does, yeah, yeah. Are we the worst thing on there is anything with Battle Ball, I suppose, but yeah. But at least they're highlighting just the ending of it, so...
01:50:00
Speaker
Now it's time for some re-gimmicking. Each of us has been given a match from the other's card, and we have to give that match a new gimmick or stipulation that would turn it into something new. So for me, Al provided Lord Stephen Regal versus Larry Zabisco from Slambry 1994. This is the Queen's Favor match. Okay.
01:50:24
Speaker
This is a falls count anywhere match and can be won by pinfall or submission. However, only a member of the peerage is permitted to attempt a pinfall or put on a submission hold. Commenters like Larry Zavisco are simply unworthy to achieve victory on a nobles battlefield. Oh.
01:50:40
Speaker
Not to worry, though. A noble must-have honor, and therefore, by the grace of the most righteous and glorious queen or reasonable facsimile, filthy peasant Zabisco will be given the opportunity to earn his way into the nobility by retrieving three items hidden around the arena. A ceremonial robe, a coronet, the small crown not to be confused with cornet, the little trumpet or wrestling manager, and a banner bearing the coat of arms of House Zabisco, designed for him by Vernugania.
01:51:08
Speaker
which I assume has two golf clubs on it. Probably, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Intertwined with the laces of those boots that he had for 18 years. Yeah. They talks about. Or if he's going to really rub it into for in Ghana, you have the eight of a title on there. Yes. This is mine, by the way. Last champion.
01:51:25
Speaker
But Lord Regal has set devious traps around these items, with Sir William ready to trigger them. So should Zabisco dodge the pitfalls, wall-mounted swinging folding chairs, and scepter launchers, and retrieve the items, then he must make his way to the entrance stage where the Queen, or Reasonable Feximili herself, will grant him a noble title and welcome him into the peerage, making it possible for him to actually win the match.
01:51:49
Speaker
Okay. But, as Zabisco takes the items to the queen or reasonable facsimile, she is kidnapped by a masked figure, and Zabisco and Regal must temporarily put their differences aside to rescue her. The masked figure is ultimately revealed to be Terra Rising, who reveals his real identity, Jean-Paul Lavec, a nefarious Frenchman who tried to take his opportunity to strike at the very heart of his English foes.
01:52:16
Speaker
With newfound respect for Zabisco given his help, Regal himself appeals for Zabisco's entry into the nobility, and by joint agreement, they finish out their match in a more gentlemanly form in the ring. Very nice. Very nice. For Al, I provided Diamond Dallas Page versus Raven from Slambry 1998, the Vowry Deathmatch. Okay. So, here in WCW, we've had single cage matches. Mm-hmm.
01:52:45
Speaker
We have had double side-by-side cage matches, and we've had triple cage matches where they're stacked one on top of the other. However, we've not had a triangle cage. A triangle cage is two cages side-by-side, like war games, but there's a section separating them with a barrier and doorways going from each cage. One doorway is a straight-through, no peril.
01:53:11
Speaker
However, the other doorway has a mysterious figure in it. Someone who will block your progress if you try to get through. So you have to pick the right door to get from the front cage, which is the one facing the entry ramp, the second cage. And you can't skip this because there is no way to get out of the first cage through the top or through the sides. Okay. Full enclosure. Yes. Okay. It's got a roof and everything on it. Hopefully Savisha's not involved. No, no.
01:53:38
Speaker
The reason why you can't escape the first cage is...
01:53:42
Speaker
we have to commit fully to the gimmicks of these people involved. So the first cage facing the front is DDP's cage. So if you try to break your way through the front, that's a problem. There are sharp diamonds embedded across the walls of the cage. You're going to hurt yourself going to break through that thing. So if you get through the second way, it's the only way to get out to the top. Because you have a smaller cage stacked in the middle with a nice floor on it. The second cage, which we have to get into,
01:54:12
Speaker
is full of media players and fitting with my favorite spot from the match, which was Raven using a VCR as a weapon. So the second cage is full of VHS players, record players, and even those weird multi-disc changer machines that look like laserdisc players because they're so big, but just hold like six CDs. Speaking of, I assume there's a laserdisc player in there somewhere as well. I mean, I don't really want to damage something that rare and special. But I mean, WCW would.
01:54:42
Speaker
Yes, they would. So that's your hardcore cage in the bottom. So if you can make it way up to the top, you have to get to that final cage to get the prize. Because you can't win by pinfall or submission. You win by retrieving the diamond raven. I assume you proceed to kill your opponent with the sharp diamond beak of the raven. Correct.
01:55:07
Speaker
And I will post this on the group, but I didn't manage a drawing for Bob in person to see. Okay. Note the diamond stud in the wall so you can't break through. And the multiplayer player, thank you. That is some stunningly good art work out. Thank you. You are truly the next Picasso or reasonable effect, Emily.
01:55:24
Speaker
It was drawn as I am picturing the match in my head sitting on my desk over there. Nice. The Time of Raven is my most proud achievement. Yes, yeah. Honestly, I have an image of that in my head. I know, right? It's so good. Once again, we also sent a match each to Jon. Strap in, folks. Oh, yeah. Should be good. I gave him a juicy one.
01:55:49
Speaker
All right, from Al, John received the Hollywood Blondes versus Dos Ambres from Slambry 1993. You ready for this? Oh, yeah. He calls this a plethora of pin-yattas.
01:56:04
Speaker
Okay. Says, it's expected that dos hombres would come to the ring in Mexican inspired attire, but it comes as a surprise that they show up as multicolored paper mache otter and goat. I like that. They dance around and unveil that they each have their own croquet mallet and a cricket bat to bust up the competition. Okay. But we cut back to an earlier scene in the locker room where they're picking out their costumes. After they leave, the Hollywood blondes show up and the screen goes dark.
01:56:31
Speaker
Back at the ring, the blondes show up in their own pinatas, a llama and a lion, and head toward the ring. They all stare each other down, and the ruff says, the match can't start until they take the stupid costumes off. But they have other ideas on how to get them off, and they all start beating each other up with their weapons, knocking confetti out of one another. The hombres still, of course, have their mask on underneath the costumes to maintain their gimmick.
01:56:58
Speaker
Other than that, it's actually a straightforward match in the cage. Okay, gotcha. Now I assume the bonds use the lion as an homage to the MGM lion. Probably, that's the bare bet, yeah.
01:57:13
Speaker
From me, Jon received Flair, Piper, and Green versus the NWO from Slamboree 1997. Gotcha. I also want to note that he expressed a great deal of love for Kevin Green and proposed that he be inducted into the Road Warriors. I could see that, yeah. I forget what name he was proposing for him, but yeah, he really enjoyed his performance. I kind of like Road Warrior Kevin. I kind of do too.
01:57:40
Speaker
So for this one, John says, it's a 1950s schoolhouse rivalry. Okay. Some of the greasers, the NWO, come on, check out that oily hair, he says. Fair enough. Are picking on some of the doo-wop pops, a trio that plays at pep rallies. Let's not worry about the age requirements here, he knows. Nah, nah.
01:57:59
Speaker
Everyone is dressed in 1950s attire. All their intros have also been updated with record pops and hi-fi sounds. Nice. The NWO theme is a bit rockabilly, and Flair's also Sprock's Zarathustra is redone masterfully as a polyphonic acapella. Oh, very nice.
01:58:15
Speaker
The doo wop pops all arrive in normal robes before the match starts, and the NWO's leather jackets and chains look pretty normal for them. Yeah, that's true. The ring has sets of lockers on the outside that are filled with books and paper to slip on. Of course. There's wooden desks to plow into as well. The referee explains that they have consented to settling their scores tonight, and instead of racing for pink slips, they'll be fighting by the flagpole.
01:58:41
Speaker
There's no countouts outside the ring, and there are three evenly spaced full-sized lockers between the stairs and the entryway, and a flagpole in the very center of the ring. The winners have to lock up or knock out the other team, and run their themed flag up the flagpole. Okay. The ref walks around the ring and collects the pink slips. There you go.
01:59:00
Speaker
This player is the first in and reveals that he's wearing some sparkly lined tweed pants and a flamboyant red and white Hawaiian shirt. There you go. Green is the next in the ring and he has a teal letterman jacket and what looks like a bowling shirt and light blue slacks and black and white wingtip looking shoes. Very nice. And Piper is the last in and has a huge grin on his face. He drops the robe and he's wearing a tartan kilt that has been modified to look like a poodle skirt. I knew that was coming. I was like, I hope it's a pool skirt. And it is. I was praying for that.
01:59:29
Speaker
The greasers almost pass out laughing at him, making fun of the skirt. Piper repeats, it's a kilt. That's true, it is. They joke around and Piper walks to the middle of the ring and moons them and ticks them off. So the match starts with everyone starting in the middle and they get thrown out of the ring and start bashing each other's heads into lockers. The winners will get the other's rides to keep and are shown riding off after the match. Very nice. I think the Piper in the poodle skirt makes that, totally.
01:59:55
Speaker
Now I'm picturing the three of them in the car flying into the sky like they're in a grease. Yes, definitely. That's definitely required. Yeah. Wow. That was good. But wait, there's more. Oh, yes, of course. So I knew it was unlikely to go on either of our actual cards, but I couldn't pass up the chance to see what John could do with the triple cage match of Doom from Slamboree 2000. Of course. He calls this breaking the fourth wall. Of course.
02:00:26
Speaker
Tesseraction.
02:00:28
Speaker
The lights go dim. A single cage lowers from the ceiling, anchored at its corners leading to the ceiling and one sturdy-looking bar at the center top that appears to be holding most if not all of the weight. Oh. There's a slight hissing noise as several smoke machines turn on along the ramp and under the ring, blanketing the arena floor and ramp with a thin layer of fog. Four referees on motorcycles stream down the entry ramp and position themselves at the four corners of the ring.
02:00:56
Speaker
All the motorcycles idle their engines and turn off their lights. The announcer says in a detached voice, we are not going to find out who is the greatest heavyweight of all time, but who is going to be the four-dimensional heavyweight champion of all space and time. I kind of feel like Randy Savage should be in this match actually.
02:01:17
Speaker
Carl Sagan's voice naturally booms over the loudspeaker and is cut into a quick version of flatland. One motorcycle uses its headlight to replicate a point, which then turns into a line as two motorcycles turn on their lights and face each other to represent two dimensions, with a line created by the smoke and headlamps. And finally, all four turn and make a white outline of the ring, forming flatland.
02:01:41
Speaker
Okay. Rather than going into the full explanation, the lights on the ring come up, showing Jarrett, Arquette, and Paige all lying down and pretending to be in a flat world.
02:01:55
Speaker
They deliver their opening exchanges, and there's a pause, and the motorcycles glide into an adjacent corner, and it wraps each dismount and grab chains that were attached to the dangling cube and hold them as they get back to their motorcycle and anchor it to a post near the audience. The announcer says that we need to move from 2D Flatland into the real world, and the lights come up, and the trios stand and explain that they have to ascend the lines connecting to the tesseract above.
02:02:21
Speaker
to win the title for all space and time. Okay. At a predestined time, they all start climbing the chains from three separate corners. The lights go out and strobes flicker, showing them moving toward the cage faster and faster as they near it. The lights go out as they near the top, and four manual spotlights focus on the cage, and the four chains from the ceiling are now gone.
02:02:42
Speaker
The motorcycles go in a circle around the darkened ring, headlights out. A robotic voice, not too unlike Carl Sagan, says something along the lines of, now folding space and time. The spotlights go out as the cage starts to spin, and 2D life-size cutouts of Paige, Arquette, and Jarrett appear to be plastered against the inner walls of the cage when the spotlights come back on and are yelling quietly through their own microphones. Okay.
02:03:08
Speaker
After about a minute of this transition, the cage touches down on the ring and the lights flicker on and the cutouts are gone, replaced by all three of them inside the cage looking quite dazed. They fight it out to be the last one standing. The match is sponsored by PBS and reviled by wrestling fans for forcing them to learn.
02:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, I never expected for John to submit an idea that actually did require me to look up Carl Sagan videos. Nice. To fully understand what the heck he was talking about. But yeah, I encourage you guys, if anyone's unfamiliar with the Carl Sagan Flatland concept, please feel free to look it up on YouTube. It's freely available, apparently. Yeah. And there's a kind of interesting explanation of dimensions. Wow. Yeah, that one blew me away there. Yeah.
02:03:58
Speaker
No match in any series will live with that now. No, no, no, that's, that's, uh, I think we've peaked. We, we only have downhill to go from URL. Ah, that's about right. Yeah.
Future Series Announcement
02:04:10
Speaker
And that wraps up our coverage of Slamboree. It's a medium length series, but it packs in a ton of content and changes. So what have we got coming up next? Well, first up, we have our bridge show.
02:04:26
Speaker
We had all sorts of ideas for this, but then the thought came to us. There's a certain show that was mentioned during this series. A very unusual show. Yeah. In a very unusual place. Mm-hmm. That's right, everyone. Eric Bischoff was so proud of WSW and New Japan's partnership with the totalitarian regime that he posted it to YouTube. He did. So we are taking advantage of that generosity to review collision in Korea. Mm-hmm.
02:04:55
Speaker
And now, our next series.
02:05:29
Speaker
Next up is Spring Stampede. Running from 1994 through 2000, it covers five shows. Wait, hold on. Yeah, it takes a few years off after the first show, oddly enough.
02:05:43
Speaker
They're like, let's do one show. Let's see how it goes and feel there. You may recall us complimenting? Definitely mentioning the 2000 edition of that show during our Slamboree 2000 review. Now it's time for us to take a look at that wonderful show in full, along with the rest of the series. At least we've got some time to build up to it. I definitely need to ready myself for that one.
02:06:08
Speaker
But, what other things can we expect from the series? Well, I looked up some of the matches, so here's what we've got. Alright. We've got Flare versus Steamboat back again. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Diamond Dallas Page will face off against Randy Savage in a battle of the three ring binders. Nice. Rey Mysterio Jr. Duels Ultimo Dragon. Ooh. DDP's first ever world title win. Oh, yeah.
02:06:33
Speaker
Hogan and Nash vs. Piper and Giant in a baseball bat on a pole match. Okay. Jimmy Hart vs. Mancow. Yeah. Seriously, couldn't they have just gotten Mantor? No, I don't know. And Al, you've waited three long years for this moment. Oh. LaParca gets a match. Hell yeah.
02:06:58
Speaker
I know he's getting a new pee already. You don't care what else happens. The pure joy on his face here, folks. I wish you could see this. Oh yeah. So again, our upcoming releases are in November, Collision in Korea, and in December, the start of our new series with Spring Stampede 1994. So get ready to saddle up and we'll continue our ride through WCW history.
02:07:22
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Links will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through.
02:07:36
Speaker
You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or TuneIn. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Absolutely. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.