Michael Fitzgerald – Scotts Blog of Doom!

Mike Reviews: ECW Living Dangerously 1999 – 21/03/1999

March 20, 2019March 21, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So here we are, after over a month of Hardcore TV episodes we finally reach Living Dangerously 99. This event was the first ever ECW show I saw, getting the VHS for Christmas in 1999 and immediately falling in love with the ECW product. I’d been an avid follower of the group in wrestling magazines up to that point, so I was jazzed to finally see what the product was actually like.

I eventually went back to the glory period of 95-97 when I finally had the chance, but Living Dangerously 99 was important when it came to getting my feet in the door so to speak when it came to the Land of the Extreme. The question is, will this event still hold up 20 years on? Well let’s take a look and see shall we?

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #308 – 20/03/1999

March 19, 2019March 20, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Here we are at the go home show for ECW Living Dangerously 1999 (Review due up tomorrow)

Will there be some final storyline advancements to heat up the issues for the pay per view? Last week’s episode wasn’t an especially good one, as a lousy Delaware crowd and some questionable match finishes soured things considerably. With one day to go, let’s see if ECW can get things back on track and deliver a go home show that makes me excited to watch the pay per view again!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #307 – 13/03/1999

March 13, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So after the dreaded clip show last week, we finally have some fresh matches again. With Living Dangerously 99 just a mere 8 days away, we can probably expect ECW to crank up the hype machine and book a few more angles to get the storylines and feuds heated up in time to reach a crescendo at the pay per view event.

So without further ado, let’s take it to Extreme and enjoy some classic Hardcore action!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #306 – 06/03/99

March 5, 2019March 6, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

We’re back again with some more ECW action!

Following on from last week, the major feuds in the company right now appear to be Taz Vs Sabu, Justin Credible and Lance Storm Vs Shane Douglas and Tommy Dreamer, and Mr. Mustafa Vs New Jack.

This show is sadly going to be a dreaded “clip show” however, as they haven’t taped any original matches for TV, so it’s going to be clips, recaps and promos. Still, there’s every chance that we could still have an entertaining 48 minutes or so, and we might get some more official match announcements for Living Dangerously on the 21^st of March.

So without further ado, let’s set the way back machine to 1999 and take it to the Extreme!

Mike Reviews: NJPW 47th Anniversary Show – 06/03/2019

March 6, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

I’ve got a day off from work today and this was on, so I decided to watch it as I rarely get a chance to watch New Japan as it actually happens anymore and I was interested to see how the main event would turn out.

This is the Anniversary of New Japan’s first ever show on the 6th of March 1972, which saw Antonio Inoki take on Karl Gotch.

Wow, 47 years of New Japan, it’s done well to last so long, especially as thinks looked a bit dicey in the early to mid 00’s when Inoki was pushing anyone with shoot fight experience to the main event. Thankfully Inoki was eventually booted out and the company decided to put the world title on Hiroshi Tanahashi, and the rest is history.

Mike’s Mini Review: Hulk Hogan Vs King Kong Bundy – WrestleMania 2

March 5, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

With the sad news of the death of King Kong Bundy reverberating through the wrestling world, I decided I’d have a look at possibly his most famous match, where he entered the main event of WrestleMania 2 against reigning WWF Champion Hulk Hogan.

The set up for this match had seen Bundy crush Hogan in the corner with his dreaded “Avalanche” splash, injuring the champ’s ribs in the process. Bundy also switched managers from Jimmy Hart to Bobby Heenan as well, due to Heenan’s camp of wrestlers being Hogan’s main rivals at the time.

Hogan came into the match with a taped mid-section and designs on revenge, whilst Bundy was looking to end Hogan’s over two year reign as champion. As was usually the case with the WWF, this match is about escaping the cage itself, rather than winning by pin fall or submission.

So, without further ado, let’s set the way back machine to 1986 for the main event of the 2^nd WrestleMania!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #305 – 27/02/99

February 27, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Yes we hop once again into the way back machine twenty years to the day for yet another review of ECW Hardcore TV, as we continue the build towards Living Dangerously on the 21^st of March 1999.

Last week we viewed the first hour of footage taped from Crossing the Line 99, and we’ll finish that off this week.

So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Mike’s Mini Review – WrestleCircus: Cage Vs Blanchard

February 25, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

ECW Hardcore TV is coming on Wednesday (Just need to type up my written notes) but to fill a bit of a gap until then I thought I’d review this match. This came about because I read in the daily update over the weekend that Impact wants to main event a show with Eli Drake Vs Tessa Blanchard in an inter-gender match (Although apparently Eli isn’t up for doing it according to his Twitter)

I saw it mentioned that this match was an especially good example of an inter-gender match done right, so I decided to give it a look seeing as WrestleCircus have officially uploaded it to their own YouTube channel.

I’m not an especially big fan of inter-gender wrestling, mainly because I don’t like watching blokes beat up women. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I’m off a generation that was taught that hitting women just isn’t cricket, eh what, and I find it a tad uncomfortable when big burly blokes batter much smaller women whilst crowds roar along. Just seems a bit Roman Coliseumish to me.

I don’t really subscribe to the argument that it isn’t especially realistic for a woman to compete with a man in a wrestling contest, mainly because any suggestion of size really destroying immersion was done away with when Rey Mysterio Jr became a big star in the 90’S.

If Rey can give up to 150-200 pounds on some of his opponents and still have a good match, I can’t see why a smaller woman can’t then hang with a bigger man if the match is structured correctly. The weight difference in this match seems frankly ridiculous however. It’s one thing for Blanchard to trade moves with a guy Dave Crist’s size, but Cage is an absolute monster in comparison. Still, I’ll go into it with an open mind. There’s no doubting that both are more than capable of having a good match, so hopefully that translates here.

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #304 – 20/02/1999

February 20, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

We’ve got a bit of a break between now and Six of the Best for WCW Uncensored, so I thought I’d watch some ECW TV from 1999. This era of ECW was when I first started properly getting into it, and I loved it so much that I went on to hoover up all the classic stuff I could from 1994-1997.

We’ll cover these up to Living Dangerously 99, and if people are digging them and I’m still enjoying writing them, I might keep them going after that. Living Dangerously 99 was actually the first ECW pay per view event I saw in full, and it did an excellent job of hooking me, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all came together on TV and whether the show itself still holds up.

So without further ado, let’s kick on with ECW Hardcore TV #304!

Six of the Best – WCW SuperBrawl

February 15, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

This time out we look at one of WCW’s gala events in the form of SuperBrawl. Indeed, for some within WCW itself, SuperBrawl was actually the event they considered to be the biggest event of the year, even bigger than Starrcade. This mostly was the case when Eric Bischoff took over, as he’s gone on record saying he never really cared for Starrcade due to it happening in December and preferred SuperBrawl’s February date.

SuperBrawl was generally a decent effort from WCW, and usually saw some pretty newsworthy big matches, such as Hollywood Hogan battling with Roddy Piper, Sting and Ric Flair in 97, 98 and 99 respectively. One SuperBrawl event in particular ended up dominating the list however, but in my defence you could probably make an argument for it being the best pay per view event WCW ever put on!

As always, these are just my own personal picks. This isn’t supposed to be some sort of objective list or anything. If I leave out a match that you think warrants inclusion, then please feel free to put it down in the comments section below. As with previous lists, I’ll be listing the matches in chronological order.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Mike Reviews: WWF In Your House 6

February 8, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

There’s no particular reason for this one, but seeing as this show happened in the month of February and comes in at just under two hours, I thought I might as well review it. I’ve set some time aside next week to work on Six of the Best for WCW SuperBrawl, so keep a look out for that to be up before February comes to a close.

Without further ado though, let’s take a look at In Your House 6!

Six of the Best – WWF/E No Way Out

February 4, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Wow, is it really February already? Seems like only yesterday that I was watching the fireworks going off to welcome in 2019, and now here we are a month in. this time out we’re looking at the event WWF/E regularly used to run in February before shelving the name in 2009, bringing it back once more in June 2012. I’ll only be looking at events that took the No Way Out name, so there’ll be no mention of In Your House VI, Final Four or St Valentine’s Day Massacre in this article (Outside of just then, obviously)

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Mike Reviews: ECW Guilty As Charged 2000

January 22, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

I decided not to do a Six of the Best for Guilty As Charged, as I couldn’t really find enough matches to meet the criteria and I would have been reaching after a certain point, so I decided just to review GAC 2000 instead, as I haven’t watched the main event from it in a while and I remember liking it back in the day.

Six of the Best – WWE Royal Rumble 2009-2018 – Non-Rumble Matches

January 18, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

The Royal Rumble event has always been about more than just the Rumble itself, with some real gems to be found on quite a few of the undercards. Because there have been so many Rumble events, I decided to split the Non-Rumble matches into three different segments, 1988-1998, 1999-2008 and 2009-2018.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Six of the Best – WWF/E Royal Rumble 1999-2008 Non-Rumble Matches

January 16, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Six of the Best – WWF Royal Rumble 1988-1998 Non-Rumble Matches

January 11, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Last time out I listed what I thought were the six best Royal Rumble matches. However, the Rumble event has always been about more than just the Rumble itself, with some real gems to be found on quite a few of the undercards. Because there’s been so many Rumble events, I decided to split the Non-Rumble matches into three different segments, 1988-1998, 1999-2008 and 2009-2018.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Six of the Best – WCW Souled Out

January 5, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Souled Out was an event that only ran for four years, with most of them being awful. However, there were enough good matches that I was able to find six of them for this feature, so I decided to do Six of the Best for the event. SuperBrawl next month should provide more options, due to more than one SuperBrawl event actually being good.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Six of the Best – Royal Rumble Matches

January 2, 2019January 2, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

I’ll be cutting the non-Rumble matches up into three separate time periods over the next few weeks (There’s been so many great matches at the Rumble event itself that it seems unreasonable to cram six matches into 30 years’ worth of shows) but for now I’ll list what I believe to be the six best Royal Rumble matches ever.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Mike Reviews: WWF Royal Rumble 1990

December 31, 2018December 31, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Seeing as we’re just one day away from January 2019, I thought I’d look back at one of the classic Royal Rumble events. The Rumble has always been a big part of every wrestling fans January, with even lapsed fans still showing an interest in it sometimes. This is ultimately because the Rumble match itself is such a great match concept, being a battle royal where you don’t know who the next person out will be.

I decided to go back and look at this one because I’ve always found it to be a pleasant easy watch, with some good matches on offer and a very notable collision in the Rumble itself that had a long lasting effect on the WWF as a whole.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at the 1990 Royal Rumble event!

Mike Reviews: WCW Souled Out 2000

December 28, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season. Sadly for me, severe asthma and a gnarly cold saw me taking a brief trip to the hospital due to breathing difficulties. Thankfully they didn’t have to keep me in overnight and sent me on my way with a new inhaler and some steroids (No, I haven’t leant any of them out to Jon Jones)

Unfortunately I’m still suffering with a terrible wheezy chest and a mother grabber of a cough, which is pretty much stopping me from sleeping, so I’ve been spending most of my nights watching WWE Network until I pass out from exhaustion. I decided to start work on Six of the Best for the WCW Souled Out pay per view (Spoiler; 1998’s event will feature heavily) and whilst skimming the 2000 show I decided to recap it.

For those unaware, WCW was in the midst of one of its many periods of dysfunction in January 2000. Head writer Vince Russo had been writing some pretty horrible television and pay per view buy rates were crashing, so then WCW head honcho Bill Busch decided to make Russo part of a committee instead. Russo wasn’t having that however, so decided to go home. Meanwhile, Bret Hart and Jeff Jarrett both dropped out of the show due to concussions, so a large chunk of the card had to be rewritten on the fly, which led to a WCW Title match between Sid Vicious and Chris Benoit hastily being put together.

Another issue loomed on the horizon however, as the man scheduled to replace Russo was Kevin Sullivan, a man who was hated by Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Shane Douglas, Billy Kidman, Rey Mysterio Jr and Konnan. Indeed, he was hated so much by this crew that they actively threatened to quit the company if he acquired the role. This was mostly due to them thinking he’d held them all down during his previous stint as booker. Despite all of this, WCW still booked Benoit in the main event of this show, even though he was liable to leave at any moment. Now that’s some classic WCWing if I ever saw it!

Could WCW still find a way to put on an enjoyable pay per view event despite all of this madness? Let’s read on and find out!

Six of the Best – WCW Starrcade matches from the 90’s

December 25, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Yes, I’ve finally managed to get around to this after many weeks removed from the 80’s list.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!

Mike Reviews: WWF Monday Night Raw – 18th of December 1995

December 22, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Six of the Best for Starrcade in the 90’s will be coming next week when I have some time off work. Until then though, I thought I’d review this show as its only 47 minutes long and features a storyline where poor Balls Mahoney had to play Santa Claus’ evil brother (Which someone actually asked about on the Blog today), so there’s a festive tie in at least.

Mike Reviews: ECW Massacre on 34th Street

December 13, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

If you’ve been wondering where Six of the Best for 90’s Starrcade has been; it’s because I’ve recently moved to a new flat and BT are taking a veritable age to set up my internet. As consequence, I’ve had no access to the WWE Network, and thus haven’t been able to put the list together. Thankfully I do have some shows on DVD that I can review in the meantime, so whenever I can get to somewhere with some internet I’ll upload them as and when I can.

Seeing as we’re in December, I thought I’d look at ECW’s penultimate Pay Per View Event before the company finally bit the dust in February of 2001. I’ve always been a big ECW fan, so seeing the company close its doors was not a pleasant experience, but they had least had a few decent matches on their final PPV events before closing the doors. The one benefit of ECW over any other company is that all the guys and gals were still working super hard, even as Rome was burning around them, so even if some of the matches weren’t great, the energy was usually infectious

Mike Reviews: WCW World War 3 1998

December 1, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I thought I might as well get another World War 3 in as November 2018 croaks its last breath, so here it is. I also think it’s important to expose just show bad this show is, because it never seems to get the “credit” it deserves in that regard. (I love how the poster, the thing designed to sell the show to you, shows two guys in a chin lock by the way. That was the most exciting picture they could dig up was it?)

Six of the Best – Starrcade matches from the 80’s

November 26, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I decided to cut Starrcade down into an 80’s and 90’s section, just because there were so many matches to select from and I wanted to give them their fair due.

So without further to do, let’s get to it!