Michael Fitzgerald – Scotts Blog of Doom!

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.

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!

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!

Mike Reviews: ROH Man Up 2007

November 24, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

No real reason for this one other than the fact I haven’t reviewed any Ring of Honour on here yet and we’re coming up for the eleventh anniversary of this show, so I thought it would be fun to show how the wrestling landscape has changed since this event took place. I also liked the symmetry of posting a show which contains Bryan Danielson taking on a monster World Champion when he’s just recently taken on a monster World Champion in WWE.

Mike Reviews: WWF Survivor Series 1995

November 21, 2018November 21, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

In the most recent Six of the Best (Where I covered Survivor Series) a poster in the comments section mentioned that Survivor Series 95 had a lot of great matches and that they were upset it didn’t feature more on the list. Seeing as we’re still a couple of weeks away from December, it seems a bit premature to do the lists for Armageddon and Starrcade, so I decided I’d fill some of the gap with a review of the show.

Six of the Best – WWF/E Survivor Series

November 17, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Despite being one of the classic “Big Four” Pay Per Views, Survivor Series doesn’t really match up to the other three when it comes to quantity of great matches. There have definitely been some excellent bouts at the annual November event over the years, but it’s always been the weakest of the four overall in my opinion. I’d never want WWE to scrap it of course, but it’s also hardly an event I look forward to like I do the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and Summer Slam.

I think it’s telling that, with one exception, all of the matches I picked here were singles bouts as opposed to the elimination survival bouts that gave this event its name in the first place. Again, it’s not like there haven’t been good survival matches either, but I do think a lot of the reason why this event survived through the years is because they downplayed the concept of the survival match and kind of just made them normal events with a token elimination bout here or there.

As always, this is just my own personal picks and it 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: WCW World War 3 1997

November 14, 2018November 14, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Seeing as I’ve just finished Six of the Best for this event, I decided I’d go back and watch this one as there’s some pretty decent matches on it and the main events of these shows are usually at least somewhat interesting, even if that interest has a somewhat car crash quality to it.

Let’s venture onward and see what we find!

Six of the Best – WCW World War 3/Mayhem

November 10, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I decided to group Mayhem in with World War 3 when it came to looking at WCW November Pay Per Views, because otherwise there’d only be four events to pick from when it came to this particular list (Which is only three when you think about it considering that World War 3 98 is one of the very worst shows of all time)

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

Six of the Best – ECW November to Remember

November 3, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

This is the first time we look at ECW for this feature. November to Remember was ostensibly ECW’s equivalent to WrestleMania, but sadly the shows from the Pay Per View era of the company never really lived up to that billing. However, there were some great matches spliced throughout N2R’s history and I’ll be listing my six favourite today.

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

Six of the Best – WWE Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday

October 27, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I realised I’d forgotten this event, which is understandable considering it was only around for five years and was never a successful event during that time either. For those who don’t remember or weren’t even around when this event took place, Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday was one of WWE’s famed “concept” shows whereby fans could vote on what the matches were. The votes were a mixture of picking challengers for titles, stipulations and even went as lurid as to deciding what type of skimpy outfit the “Divas” would wear in matches.

Buy rates for this show were never that good and they finally decided to drop it from the schedule in 2008 after a string of disappointing returns.

As always, this is just my own personal selection and it 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!

Six of the Best – WCW Halloween Havoc

October 19, 2018October 19, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Last time out I listed what I believed to be the six best matches from WWF/WWE’s No Mercy event. This time I’ll be taking a look at what was traditionally WCW’s October offering in the form of Halloween Havoc.

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

Six of the Best – WWF/E No Mercy

October 14, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Seeing as we’re now in October, I thought I’d list what I believe to be the six best matches from the traditional October pay per view events of both WWE and WCW. I was considering doing one for ECW Anarchy Rulz as well, but there were only two pay per views with that name before the company went out of business so ECW will have to wait for November before I cover them.

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

NJPW Ultimate Crush II – 13th of October 2003

September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I’ve had this one in my tape library for about 14 years but have never bothered to sit down and watch it all the way through, mainly because I really went off New Japan during this era and was instead mostly watching NOAH. I was looking for something to review so I thought we’d set the way back machine to 2003, when the New Japan product was pretty awful. It’s amazing to watch shows like this and see how far the company has come since these darker days.

This show took place during a period in New Japan where Antonio Inoki was obsessed with shoot fighting and was filling New Japan shows full of judo, K1 and PRIDE guys. His booking was getting increasingly erratic and it wasn’t leading to success at the box office. This show actually has three legitimate shoot fights on it, as well as an appearance by Hulk Hogan and a big 5 on 5 elimination match.

Six of the Best – WCW Fall Brawl

September 5, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Last time out I listed what I believed to be the six best matches from the former annual September WWE pay per view Unforgiven. Seeing as I gave WWE’s former September showpiece the business, I decided to do the same with WCW’s Fall Brawl event.

The Fall Brawl pay per view event ran annually from 1993 to 2000, and was usually the show WCW chose to unleash its #1 gimmick match known as War Games. Sadly WCW had a strict no blood rule during this era and their greatest showcase bout suffered as a consequence. However, Fall Brawl still hosted its share of good matches over the years and I found more than enough matches to make a top six.

As always, these are just my own personal picks. If you think I’ve unfairly excluded a particular match then please share your thoughts in the comments section below. As with the Unforgiven list, I’ll be listing the matches in chronological order, just for the sake of ease.

Six of the Best – WWF/E Unforgiven

August 27, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

I thought I’d try something new on here, although more classic All Japan is also planned for down the line.

As the name suggests, I will be looking at certain shows or wrestlers and picking what I believe to be the six best matches in a given scenario. Seeing as summer is coming to a close and the autumn months are looming ahead of us, I thought I’d compile the six best matches from WWE’s Unforgiven pay per view. Though the first Unforgiven was held in the April of 1998, the following ten versions of it all took place in the month of September before WWE stopped using the name in 2008.

These are all just my personal opinions of course. If there’s a match I haven’t listed that you think I should have included in the top six then please feel free to say so in the comments. I’ll be listing the matches chronologically just for the sake of ease.

AJPW TV – 22nd and 29th of October 1994

August 7, 2018 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello you!

I’ve been a bit bogged down with covering G1 Climax over at Gaming Respawn for the past few weeks, which has limited the time I could spend watching classic All Japan.

However, I’ve got a free evening so I decided to fill it with some hard hitting AJPW action!