The Story of Dusty Rhodes in ECW

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/Sh5i4l_jK74

On February 6th 2023, Cody Rhodes stood in the Monday Night Raw ring, opposite a man who has a lot of history with his family, Paul Heyman. Cody talked in depth about something he has mentioned in the past but not in so much detail. He talked about a time in his young life when his family was broke. He talked about Dusty doing car commercials not for the money, but to get to keep the car. That night Dave Meltzer confirmed all that Cody had said, and also told a story on Observer radio of Dusty selling his own rolex to get Cody and his Sister into acting classes, which seem to have paid off all these years later. Cody then talked about Paul Heyman booking him at ECW and paying him very well, thus giving him his confidence back. Cody wasn't just referencing a single appearance though. While it was supposed to be a one off, in early 2000 Dusty would appear for ECW as part of a storyline to help get a young talent to the next level. This is the story of when Dusty Rhodes went to ECW and feuded with Steve Corino, and in this video we're going to stop at every single time Dusty appeared on TV, or Corino would mention him. I'll also include time stamps in the description if you want to skip to the bigger moments.

For a little context on how Paul Heyman came to book Dusty, the two actually have history going back to early 90's WCW. Heyman has told the story a few times of how he would sneak into Dustys production meetings, eventually talking his way into sitting next to Dusty just so he could learn booking from him. From the way Heyman has talked about Dusty through the years, there is clearly a genuine respect there, and we are seeing that come out in the current Wrestlemania build.

Late 1999 was a transitional time for Steve Corino in ECW. He was previously been the comedy heel, scared of his own shadow never mind the rest of the ECW locker room. But in recent weeks he had been trying to get himself taken more seriously, which isn't exactly an easy task when the ECW faithful think you're a joke. On the December 3rd 99 episode of ECW on TNN, Corino would try to make a name for himself by going ion stage and interrupting a Limp Bizkit concert. He even gets to have an argument with Fred Durst, until he turns around into an attack from Balls Mahoney, Axl Rotten and New Jack.

On the following weeks episode ECW would come from the Tabernacle in Atlanta Georgia, a well known music venue that is still open to this day. Steve Corino would come out to be interviewed about the Limp Bizkit incident by Joey Styles. He already blamed hardcore wrestling for the way he saw America going, but now he was turning his attention to hardcore music as well, proclaiming acts like N-Sync and the Backstreet Boys far superior, truly dating this while segment. Corino points his finger for starting all this counter culture at one man, Dusty Rhodes, who was standing in the crowd. When it looked like Dusty was leaving, he would then come down the walkway, and get into the ring.

As Dusty gets into the ring Corino continues to berate him, calling him among other things an old fossil. According to Corino reflecting on this moment years later, the only instruction he had been given backstage was not to mention Dustin, who I believe around this time had done the terrible Seven gimmick on WCW Nitro, and would soon be out of the door. Corino then hits Dusty with the lightest slap possible, and he and his hapless manager Jack Victory proceed to take the famous Dusty Rhodes elbows. In the interview I referenced earlier with Mike Maraldo, Steve Corino gushes over meeting Dusty that night, and how excited he was to take the elbows from him. Knowing this and watching it back you can tell Corino is doing all he can to enjoy the moment, while selling. Corino also noted that they may not have been able to use the footage given that the same week Dusty had left WCW, but when Dusty made it backstage, he wanted to work more with Corino, so this was aired as the catalyst for what was to follow. I'm making this video a couple of weeks removed from the segment on Raw between Cody and Paul Heyman on Monday Night Raw. In the segment It's very possible that the booking Cody was referencing was this interaction with Steve Corino, and Dusty in return stayed for a while to eventually have matches with Corino, but we'll get to that.

On the Christmas day edition of Hardcore TV Steve Corino was set to wrestle Balls Mahoney and Alx Rotten to get revenge on them for what happened at the Limp Bizkit Concert. That match never takes place though as we see Corino, Victory and their associate Rhino leaving Balls laid out in a locker room. There is blood both on Rhinos fist and the chair Victory is carrying. Corino says this is a a warining to anyone who messes with them, and mentions that this includes Dusty Rhodes. Balls manages to stagger to the ring for the match. Balls fights for all he can, but is outnumbered. Once Balls has had enough the Sandman enters having been feuding with Rhino, but he gets gored through a table for his efforts. Balls manages to take advantage of the Sandmans appearance by decking Corino with a chair and pinning him to win the match, but Rhino gets revenge right after by hitting him with a gore, and Corino's crew leave on top. While Dusty Rhodes doesn't appear the message here is simple, Corino should be taken seriously when Dusty rolls back into ECW.

The next time we would see Dusty Rhodes would be at the Guilty as Charged pay per view from Birmingham Alabama. While Corino and his crew put a beating on Jerry Lynn following a match, he gets on the mic and resumes running down Dusty Rhodes. While Corino is running his mouth however, Dusty appears from the crowd, and clears the ring with elbows, before doing his big elbow drop on Tommy Rich, ECW's resident Full Blooded Italian from Hendersonville Tennessee. Things don't end well for Dusty though as Rhino enters to attack him, and Corinos Old School group pile on until the ECW locker room empties to chase them away. The segment ends with Paul Heyman getting in the ring to check on Dusty as the crowd loudly show their appreciation.

Corino mentioned in the interview that a lot of their feud took place on house shows for the live crowds, but Dusty would soon be returning to ECW television. On the January 15th Hardcore TV, Corino announces that Dusty and Tommy Dreamer had challenged Rhino and Steve Corino to a match next time ECW came to Florida. Corino very notably talking really tough while clearly hiding behind his monster Rhino. A couple of weeks later on the January 28th TNN episode from New Orleans, Corino and Rhino would have a tune up match of sorts, as they would take on Tommy Dreamer and a man called Josh Wilcox, who Joey Styles notes is not a full time wrestler, but he was a starting tight end for the New Orleans Saints, and had wrestled a couple of matches here and there. Most of the match is worked by Rhino and Dreamer, as Corino comes in only when Rhino is winning to put the boots in, and Wilcox comes in for the hot tag, or so we thought. When Wilcox gets the tag it looks like Corino is going to back away from him, Wilcox however turns the chair to his own partner, turning on Dreamer. Steve Corino is again made to look cunning and dangerous. Heres a trivia fact too, Josh Wilcox would go on to be part of Los Angeles Xtreme, the only championship winning team in the XFL in 2001.

Just when I thought this was going to end here, Corino gets on the mic and turns his attention to his upcoming match with Dusty Rhodes, and actually appears in the building. As soon as he is mentioned he appears, reminding me of Vampiro sat at ringside waiting for his music to play... Corino notes that last time Dusty came through the crowd so he is ready for that, but what he wasn't ready for was Dusty sneak attacking him from the entrance way. Dusty makes short work of Corino and Victory before dropping the big elbow on Wilcox to make the crowd happy.

On February 4th 2000, ECW finally arrives in Fort Lauderdale Florida, and the match finally happens. Corino starts the match by taunting Dusty into wanting to start, and when the American Dream obliges, Corino back away and tags Rhino in. At this time Dusty isn't as agile as he used to be, but what he can do the crowd loves. He tackles Rhino and puts on a figure four leg lock, while Dreamer, Corino Jack Victory and Francine who is with Dreamer work around them. After a wild brawl around the arena where Dusty makes Corino bleed, the match settles back into the ring with Rhino beating down Dreamer just like the match in New Orleans. Tommy hits a suplex off the second rope and finally gets to tag Dusty, and this time his partner doesn't turn on him. Dusty goes for the bionic elbow on Rhino but misses. Just when it looks like Rhino is going to piledrive the Dream, Tommy makes the save, leading to Dusty hitting the big elbow on Steve Corino to win the match.

Despite Dusty getting the victory over Steve Corino the story wouldn't end there. The Following week in Tallahassee Florida Dusty Rhodes would appear in the ring again. After taking a piledriver from the Impact Players and laying motionless in the ring for several minutes, the programme comes back from the break with Paul Heyman and Dusty Rhodes checking on the possibly injured Raven. This leads to an in ring confrontation between Rhodes and Cyrus, who is more interested in getting the show going again for the sake of the Network. Dusty talks to the people while Cyrus cowers in the corner, drawing Steve Corino out. Before Corino can begin Dusty clears the ring until Rhino enters and the three attack Dusty, with Jack Victory even using a trademark of the Rhodes family, a bullrope. Bizarrely, the Sandman appears on the entrance way and the show just ends without us seeing what happened next.

On the following night's Hardcore TV in Jacksonville Florida (Feb 12th) Dusty would get in the ring again, as he and Dreamer once again took on Corino and this time Jack Victory. How would Corino fair this time without Rhino to hide behind? Not very well to begin with, as Tommy and Corino brawl into the crowd, and Dusty and Victory fight around ringside in what is announced to be a street fight. Corino manages to slow the match down for a while using a ladder, but Tommy eventually uses it himself, and tags Dusty in. Rhodes and Dreamer quickly team up and win the match with stereo bionic elbows, but as soon as Dusty gets the pin he is attacked by Rhino. Just like the previous night the show ends with the Sandman running in, but this time we at least get to see him cane Rhino and Corino, and save the day before the show ends.

Things would go cold in the storyline for a couple of weeks, as Rhino would continue to feud with Sandman, Tommy Dreamer would go back to his lone time story with Raven, and Dusty would not be seen for a while. On the March 3rd TNN episode, Steve Corino would come out dressed in a cowboy hat lookin a lot like Dusty, also equipped with a bull rope with a cowbell on it. He confronts a confused seeming Eric Watts, son of territory promoter Cowboy Bill Watts, and explains that he chose Watts as his opponent, and that the match will be an 'old school style' Bull rope match. The match never actually begin however, as Steve Corino assaults the referee with the cow bell because said ref was sick of Corino bashing Milwaukee, where they were that night. Watts then joins Corino in beating up the referee. Steve Corino then goes too far. First he officially challenges Dusty to a Bull rope match at the next pay per view, Living Dangerously, then he proceeds to accuse Dusty of some awful things, the worst being cutting the brakes of Magnum TA's car, referring to the car accident that would cut Magnums career short in 1986.

On March 11th one day before Living Dangerously, Dusty responds in a taped promo from his home. Dusty accepts Corino's challenge and promises to deck him with his cowbell in a way only Dusty Rhodes can.If this ECW run helped Dusty get him confidence back, you can hear it in this interview.

Finally we get to March 12th 2000, ECW Living Dangerously from Danbury Connecticut. Steve Corino kicks the night off in the ring now adding cowboy boots to his American Dream cosplay. Before Dusty can come out however, Corino picks a fight at ringside with Lori Fullington, the wife of the Sandman who is sitting in the crowd. This is all part of Sandman and Rhinos feud which runs through most of 2000. Lori ends up getting gored through a table, so the Sandman has to forfeit his match with Rhino in the vacant television title tournament because he goes to the hospital with his wife. Once order has been restored as much as it can be in ECW, Dusty Rhodes makes his entrance for the match.

In the early going Corino tries to back away and not put on his end of the Bull Rope, but as chance would have it the referee for the match is HC Loc, the same referee that Corino attacked in Milwaukee, who makes sure to get the rope strapped to Corino. Every time he tries to retreat all Dusty has to do is yank him back with the rope, and it doesn't take long until Corino meets the cow bell with his face. Dusty then drags a helpless Corino on a tour through the crowd. The match once it gets back to the ring can only be described as Jim Ross would say, as bowling shoe ugly, but it is at least a definitive pay off to the feud. The end comes when Dusty tapes a second cowbell to Corinos head with help from the referee Corino attacked before, and drills a chair into it. Dusty then hits the big elbow to the mat for the pin. From just a couple of months ago when this story began, Steve Corino had effectively managed to change his chcracter from a comedic loser to a serious competitor, and this was helped by having a strong hero to work off like Dusty. There is still one thing left to do though, and that is to get Corino a big victory to elevate him.

On the March 25th TNN episode Steve Corino comes out still carrying s cowbell and wearing his cowboy boots. He proceeds to confront HC Loc, the referee that Corino attacked, who got his revenge at Living Dangerously. Corino claims to have destroyed Rhodes, showing that he clearly got his cowbell rung, before calling himself the new American Dream. Loc doesn;t back down though, even challenging Corino to a fight, but Corino in his cowardly ways sends another wrestler known as Chilly Willy in to take his place. As you might expect this starts very one sided, but Loc actually gets a comeback in which the crowd root for, but he makes a mistake by jumping off the ropes. Corino throws Chilly Willy the cowbell, but Loc gets to use it and counts his own pinfall. HC Loc gets the win!

The next week, Corino comes for revenge on the extreme official, challenging him to a match himself, but it being Steve Corino, he doesn't do it alone as Jack Victory blindsides the referee. The two proceed to have a match with Corino mostly taking charge, but Loc does his best to fight back. Eventually having seen enough, The real American Dream returns, with a lady on each arm. Dusty again makes short work of Corino and Jack Victory, before pulling Loc on top as Jim Molinaux counts the pin.

The next time Dusty would appear would be the April 21st TNN, and this time he would be in action again but with a difference. Originally this match begins as an extreme bullrope match between Steve Corino and Tommy Dreamer, but things will quickly descend into chaos. I should add here that by this time the evil stable known as the Network had been established, consisting or Corino, Rhino, Jack Victory and Tajiri led by Cyrus the Virus, known these days as AEW's Don Callis. The Network name being a reference to TNN itself who was airing the show, who by this point Paul Heyman didn;t have the best of relationships with. That information will come in handy for this section. After a few minutes of a really cool brawl of a match in which the bullrope is merely a suggestion given how many times it comes on and off their wrists, Jack Victory runs in to help Corino and it all goes to pot from here. Victory's presence triggers the Sandman to come to Dreamers aid, but not without taking his time while his Metallica theme song played. Sandman would even the odds for his side until he is attacked by Yoshihiro Tajiri who enters next. By this point I realised that we were seeing Paul Heyman book Dusty as part of a 'Dusty finish', a term that comes from his time in creative where he would book angles where wrestler after wrestler would run in to end a segment. He would do this so many times that the angle is still named after him to this day. Dusty wouldn't be the next man out though, as that would be New Jack, bringing his trademark weaponry. From here we have wrestlers and weapons everywhere, with Dreamer and Tajiri even brawling into the crowd. After Tajiri accidentally spits the green mist at his own partner Corino, New Jack pins him to earn the win, but it wouldn't end here as this would cause the Network final boss to enter, that being Rhino. Just when it looked like the Network had gotten revenge, out comes Dusty Rhodes, who clears the ring. His trusty bionic elbow hit several times could not drop Rhino to the mat, but Sandman's cane could. This allows the team of good guys and New Jack to celebrate in the ring to close the show.

Remember how I said earlier that the one this left to do was for Dusty to elevate Steve Corino? On April 22nd Dusty would do just that as at Cyber Slam 2000 he would lose in a singles match to Corino.Clips from the match would air on the following weeks episode of ECW on TNN, which is the most I could find of it anywhere on the internet. The clips show that Victory and Corino used the cowbell on the bullrope, giving Corino the win. Corino was slightly robbed in a sense as the main thing people remember Cyberslam 2000 for was a changing of the guard in the main event, as Taz, who was with WWE by this point and had returned briefly to get the belt of Mike Awesome, would lose to the man many consider to be the beating heart and soul of ECW, Tommy Dreamer. Most wrestlers might be glad to find out that they would be winning the world title, but not Tommy. His path through ECW had deliberately been one of just coming up short, such as going nearly two years without defeating his main rival Raven. In the rise and Fall of ECW documentary WWE made in 2005, Tommy explains; "The night I won the belt I was actually pissed off. I wanted to go my entire ECW career without ever winning a title. When Mike Awesome left Paul put the title on my because he knew I wasn't going anywhere. The only reason I won titles was because guys left." Tommy has also said that he wanted his character to be remembered as the never man, and so a plan was made that made everyone involved happy. Tommy would win the title, but would be immediately challenged by the up and coming villain Justin Credible, and Tommy in his pride would accept only to lose the title fairly quickly to a new top star for the promotion. All of this to say, nobody really talks about Steve Corino getting his win on this night.

Jack Victorys involvement in Corino's win would lead to Dusty's final ECW match, as the two would face off in a Bullrope match on the May 27th episode of Hardcore TV. We would join the match in progress with Dusty already bleeding. What we see of it is brief and pretty much one sided, with Corino failing to help his ally and Dusty getting the win on his way out of ECW.

By the end of the year 2000, Dusty would be readying to return to WCW, about to feud with Ric Flair and Jeff Jarrett teaming with Dustin, and Steve Corino would be enjoying a two month reign as ECW World champion, a title reign that helped him to remain a main eventer in the years post ECW. Dusty and Corino would continue to wrestle in various promotions in the following years, including Dusty's own indie promotion, Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling which he both owned and wrestled in. In 2004 he would join TNA as a member of creative and an on screen authority figure. His best remembered idea from this time might be the Lockdown concept, a pay per view where every match would take place inside a steel cage. While this was heavily criticised at the time, Lockdown would last for may years, one such event being TNA's highest bought pay per view ever. Eventually Dusty make his way back to WWE, famously being one of the early figureheads of NXT, still fondly talked about by those he helped to develop from Kevin Owens, to Seth Rollins, to even the Tribal Chief.

The ECW tenure did a lot for Steve Corino's career in giving him a story the fans could watch him develop and change through, but it maybe did even more for the American Dream, who in his sons own words in 2023, was down on his luck and lacking in self belief until he entered the land of extreme. To quote Cody, Dusty went from Undesirable to Undeniable.

LeBelle Promotions and their booking of Frankenstein's Monster

This is the script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/2gaAr622FXA

The inspiration for this video came from one of the more interesting of the annual Wrestling Observer awards, the 'most disgusting promotional tactic'. The first winner if you can call it that of this prize was in 1981, and is referred to as "LeBelle Promotions' usage of the Monster, saying he was built in a laboratory". As a sign of the times, California based LeBelle Promotions was the first of only four territories to achieve this award, with WWE winning it twenty four times out of the past 40 years, most recently because of this man, I mean usually because this man, but last year directly because of this man. But why LeBelle promotions though, and what was so disgusting about The Monster?

Promoter Mike Lebelle is the brother of 'Judo' Gene Lebell, but the two apparently didn't get along to the point that they would spell their names differently to not be linked to each other. Gene Lebell by the way is maybe best known to modern fans as the innovator of the Lebell lock, made famous in recent years by Bryan Danielson when he made it to WWE, partly because they weren't thrilled with his previous finishing hold being called Cattle Mutilation.

Mike LeBelle first got into promoting by taking over the independent WWA around 1965. At the time they had their own World Champion, Bobo Brazil, who held what was considered to be a major title comparable to the NWA, AWA or WWWF championship. This would change in 1968 when Lebelle and another California promoter Roy Shire were convinced into joining the NWA by Sam Muschnick, who served many years as a trusted figure and problem solver amongst territories. Being a member of the NWA back in this era meant that promoters had to adhere to several rules, the most important of which was that they couldn't have their own World Champion anymore, and would have to acknowledge the NWA champion, who was Gene Kiniski at the time they joined.

In the 1970's Mike Lebelle would often sell out the fifth-teen thousand seat Olympic auditorium in Los Angeles where shows would be held on Wednesday and Friday nights. The venue was famous for various sports, most notably Boxing, Wrestling and Roller Derby. The building was also used as a venue for the 1932 Olympic games, hosting Boxing, Wrestling and Weightlifting. Opened in 1925, the venue briefly closed though much of the 80's in part due to the closure of LeBelle Promotions, but was active from 93 to around 2005, even hosting an ECW pay per view, Heat Wave in 2000. The building is still there, but now operates as a Church. The venue is also notable for being used in many Boxing and Wrestling films, including the first three Rocky movies, Raging Bull, and even the David Arquette classic Ready to Rumble. I suppose not being far from Hollywood made it a great place to film such scenes.

Another accomplishment of LeBelle was that in 1971 he is credited as promoting the first known closed circuit wrestling event. The event held on July 30th would not only sell out at the Olympic Auditorium, but also drew four thousand more fans to the nearby Warren and Orpheum theatres to watch the closed circuit broadcast. This would take place fourteen years before Wrestlemania 1, which relied on closed circuit screenings to turn a profit before pay per view would take over.

One of the more notable feuds that LeBelle would promote would be John Tolos versus Classy Freddie Blassie, even drawing an estimated number between eighteen and twenty-five thousand fans at the much larger LA colosseum on August 12th 1971. In May of that year they had began a story where Blassie had been blinded by powder and may never wrestle again. He would return in July to build the big match that would take place at the Colosseum. According to Dave Meltzers obituary of LeBelle from his passing in 2009, Mike was considered very business minded, so when the Blassie Tolos rematch didn't draw as much, he ended the program, possibly leaving money on the table for more rematches. Despite being LeBelle's top draw for much of the 60's, Blassie in particular didn't get along with LeBelle stemming from what he thought was a low payment for the Colosseum show. In his 2003 autobiography Freddie Blassie would write "Even during the best of times I was waiting for him to put a hatchet in my back." It's safe to say that Mike wasn't popular with a lot of wrestlers over pay related issues, but thats not a complaint exclusive to him in the territory days.

Later into the 70's LeBelle would hit it big with another headlining feud, as his top heel Rowdy Roddy Piper would battle the beloved Guerrero family, Chavo Guerrero in particular, the brother of Eddie Guerrero and Father of the Chavo Guerrero who is still around wrestling today. Mike Lebelle is credited as being the promoter that would discover and elevate Piper, and from LA he would go on to Portland where he would become a star in that territory too. Chavo, as well as his brothers Mando and Hector (who by the way would play the Gobbledy Gooker in WWE), would be young stars for Lebelle, but by this time business was declining from the glory days of the mid 60's to 70's.

By 1980 the promotion was doing badly, drawing four thousand at the Olympic Auditorium where they used to draw much more. By this time Lebelle was surviving based on his Spanish language broadcasts being aired internationally. In 1982 the promotion would finally close its doors, and in 83 Vince McMahon would buy television time in LA as part of his national expansion. Mike Lebelle would briefly work for Vince to help promote WWF shows in Los Angeles, but this relationship fell through once Vince had established his shows in the area and no longer needed LeBelle.

So now let's get to The Monster. The wrestler this is referring to is a man called Cornelio Hernandez better known as Tony Hernandez, who seems to have spent most of his career wrestling in Arizona and California. Later in his career perhaps with a little influence from Hollywood, Hernandez would adopt a new gimmick, inspired by the many, many films starring Mary Shelley's 1818 creation. He would be billed as the Monster, basically a blatant ripoff of Frankensteins monster. As you might expect The Monster would lurch around the ring and barely sell his opponents offence. Does that remind you of anyone?

It should remind you of a few different wrestlers, going to show just how much wrestling has changed. If you go back and watch the first year or so of the Undertaker in WWE, you'll find a very different performer than the man who stole many a Wrestlemania decades later. Undertaker would often plod slowly around the ring and perform very simple offence, much of which being chokes. The Frankenstein's monster influence was obvious, but not overbearing which may be why he got away with it. From what I can gather the Observer award was given because once The Monster arrived in LeBelle Promotions in 1981. He was promoted as being a man built in a laboratory, a real life Frankensteins monster as opposed to clearly a gimmick. While it's easy to look back with modern eyes and not see much wrong with such a wacky gimmick given some of the things we've seen over the years, when Hernandez arrived in LeBelle promotions, the fans hated him, and not in the way a wrestling promoter wants you to hate their heel.

You know how the likes of Jim Cornette like to talk about the old days when people believed in wrestling? Well the fans he's talking about would have been the ones that hated this gimmick so much. Imagine what they would have thought of PCO being restarted from a car battery? The fans who were going to the Olympic Auditorium were likely also going to the weekly boxing cards in the same building, and showing those fans a supposed horror movie character was likely not going to go well.

Legend has it that there was someone else who despised the Monster gimmick, Andre the Giant, who himself for a time wrestled using the name Monster Roussimoff. There is a story of a match that took place between Andre and the Monster, where the real life giant was so offended at being asked to sell for The Monster, that in the ring he worked rough with him, going as far as to rip his Frankenstein mask off. This caused a big problem for LeBelle Promotions, what do you do when your big unstoppable monster has just been embarrassed by Andre the Giant? Well, you turn him babyface of course! The promotion apparently went as far as to put on "picture with the monster nights", going full gear into making him family friendly.

Heres a random trivia note that fits in around this time too. One year after after the Observer award, Hernandez would appear in the 1982 film Losin' it, which according to imdb is the first starring role of Tom Cruise. His role is credited as 'big guy in jail'.

When you look at some of the later winners of the 'most disgusting promotional tactic' award, this one feels a little tame. Many of the ones that would follow would revolve around the exploitation of a wrestlers death, or capitalising on other real life tragedies. Had Tony come around a decade later maybe he wouldn't have that dishonourable award, but if he had come around later would I be still be talking about him right now?

Al Snow's ECW Odyssey

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can view the video here: https://youtu.be/Tb_cvqydyjU

On May 3rd 1998 ECW presented Wrestlepalooza from Marietta Georgia. In the main event the ECW world champion Shane Douglas would defend his title against not a man who many would immediately think of when the subject of ECW alumni comes up, but a man who managed to turn his career around in the promotion, despite his run lasting less than a year. That man is Al Snow, and this night would be his final televised appearance before he would be leaving the promotion, to take his new found character to the WWE, but lets take a look at how Al made the best of his time in the land of extreme.

Al Snow returned to ECW in August of 1997 having wrestled a few matched there in 1995, coming off what many would consider a fairly dubious run in WWE. He played several different gimmicks, masked wrestlers Shinobi and Avatar, and would have a run as Leif Cassidy. Maybe the most success he would have was in a short lived team with Marty Jannetty as the New Rockers, and when I say 'most success' I still don't mean much. By the end of his first run Al was mainly an enhancement talent getting over stars over, and that frustrated him. He noted in an interview many years later that he should have been more grateful for the opportunities he had to be on television at all, but at the time he couldn't see it that way. Around this time WWE had begun a working relationship with ECW, where Paul Heyman could take talent that WWE wanted to hone their skills. This was a few years before WWE had any real developmental system of their own. This gave Al the idea of going to ECW and trying to get a new gimmick over enough that WWE would have to give him a better shot, and so he requested so be sent to Philadelphia. In his final months in WWE as Leif Cassidy, Al would come to the ring aggressively, but also with a faraway look in his eye. On his final night he would hint at suffering some kind of breakdown, which he wanted to play on when he got to ECW.

Al Snow would make his televised ECW return at the 1997 Hardcore Heaven pay per view to wrestle Rob Van Dam. Ironically given Snows frustrations with WWE, Rob Van Dam was at the time playing up his Mr. Monday Night- pro WWE persona, even coming out with WWF logos airbrushed onto his singlet to draw heat from the crowd. Al would walk to the ring with a bizarre look on his face, as if he wasn't all there, while Joey Styles on commentary notes that he is at this point fifth teen years into his career. Snow would lose this match, then go on to lose in his next television appearance a week later, challenging Shane Douglas for the ECW World title.

In Al's own words in a 2017 interview, it took him quite a while to get the unhinged aspect of the new character into his matches. He said that the idea behind it was that he had been wrestling for so long ad not achieved what he considered success, and so had gone crazy, but it wasn't coming across in the ring. in October he would wrestle a non televised match against the Great Sasuke, and would spot a prop on a parade float that also kept in the ECW arena that inspired him. That prop would be a styrofoam head. Adding to this what Al had read in a book about schizophrenia, Al came up with the idea of the head talking to him. He also credits Mick Foley with some of the inspiration too, as in his WWE days he would travel with Mick, who would play around with the styrofoam head that his Mankind mask was kept on.

In storyline though, things would be a little different. Al debuted a styrofoam head on non televised events through the Summer of 97, and the house fans seemed to be getting into it, so much so that Paul Heyman saw him as a future babyface. Unfortunately for Al, he would suffer a shoulder injury and was taken off the November to Remember pay per view. instead of wrestling however, ECW would air a segment on the event where Al sat backstage yelling at a mannequin head similar to the one he would take to WWE. Al was sat in the dressing room with the other wrestlers around him, yelling at the head, blaming it for telling management that he was hurt and couldn't wrestle. What makes this segment even better is that all the wrestlers who are getting changed around him are ignoring this as if it is standard behaviour in the ECW locker room. The other thing to note is this might be the debut of the Job Squad concept, as Al would wear the same shirt the faction would wear in WWE later on.

On the December 13th episode of Hardcore TV, we would see Al yelling at someone in a car. He explains that every time he asked management how he could get over, they told him "give us some head." Apparently not understanding what they meant by that, Al would take them literally. The camera would peel back to reveal that he had been arguing with Head, who was strapped into the drivers seat.

On the next weeks show, Al would being Head to the ring with him. Joey on commentary would play down any dirty jokes you might be thinking, putting over that Al was deeply disturbed. Despite this Al would make short work of defeating Paul Diamond, and Al Snow was clearly onto something with this new character. In the following weeks Al would be shown backstage arguing with Head, but the next major development would happen on the January 17th episode of Hardcore TV, when Al would enter for his match with Roadkill, and the crowd all had styrofoam heads, and would rave along to Al's entrance music. As Paul Heyman noted in the Rise and Fall of ECW documentary produced by WWE in 2005, he would buy styrofoam heads by the hundreds and hand them out before Al's entrances, and it would make for an amazing visual on camera.

This is just my own theory, but looking at what else was going on in ECW at the time, I feel like Al was getting over because he provided something different, far less intense than the main storylines at the time. ECW alumni were engaging in a bitter war with the WWF, while Shane Douglas and the Triple Threat had a stranglehold on the World Title, so a man bickering with a mannequin head offered not just comic relief, but something less aggressive for the fans to get into.

Throughout early 1998 Al would rarely if ever lose on ECW television or at house shows, which would lead him to his biggest opportunity yet, the main event of Living Dangerously on March 1st 1998. On a night most well known for Taz and Bam Bam Bigelow crashing through the ring mat, ECW would have two more matches with a gaping hole in the ring. One of these was billed as a 'dream tag team partner match, in which Lance Storm and Chris Candido were allowed to choose their own partners. Candido picked the World champion Shane Douglas. Storms partner was kept a surprise until right before the match. Even after the opening bell they are still pretending to not know who Storms partner is, even pretending that Sunny would be the partner in the ongoing feud between Candido and Storm. This would be a swerve as Sunny would turn on Storm, leading to Al Snow entering to be Lance's partner. By the way this was presented, it seems like Al was supposed to be a surprise, but you might have already noticed that every fan in the pictures I'm showing was waving a styrofoam head, killing the surprise a bit...In a match that lasts just under five minutes, Snow would throw Shane Douglas into the hole in the ring made by Taz and Bam Bam, then hit him with a Snow Plow to pin the world champion amidst a sea of heads.

On the following weeks edition of Hardcore TV Shane Douglas would waste no time in issuing a challenge to Al Snow to prove that he is in fact the better man, setting the stage for the next pay per view, Wrestlepalooza. On March 21st, in a fairly uncomfortable segment Joey Styles would conduct an in ring interview with the champion, who snapped when Styles made a head joke. When Francine tried to talk sense into him, he grabs her by the wrist, and even shoves down his Triple Threat stablemate Candido. Cleary the pinfall loss to Al Snow has gotten to Shane, and he appears to be going off the deep end himself. In the main event that night the Triple Threat would defeat the team of Lance Storm, Chris Chetti and Jerry Lynn, but the Franchise still wasn't any happier. He would goad the fans until they threw the styrofoam heads at him, and Al would run in to attack Douglas. Clearly Snow is inside the head of the Franchise. Pun intended...

Right before the match on the night of Wrestlepalooza they air a backstage promo by Snow, and we see a lesser known side of him. Al isn't playing up the gimmick or talking to Head. He's essentially not in character. He talks very seriously about his sixteen years in wrestling. He implies that Shane Douglas got ahead because he was a good looking guy, but Al thought he was always better. This is after all, the biggest match of Al's career to date.

Shane Douglas enters the ring looking like a wounded animal, with a heavily braced arm that he injured at the previous years November to Remember while defending his ECW title against Bam Bam Bigelow. That injury would keep him out of the ring for a few months, but it would continue to bother him well into 1998. As Douglas climbs through the ropes he is pelted by styrofoam heads from the crowd. Normally the champion would enter last, but this night was given to Al. As the lights go down and Al's music hits the crowd erupts.

Despite the build leading up to the match, earlier in the night they teased that the match wouldn't even happen. An hour into the show Joey Styles invites Shane to the ring for an interview. While introducing him, Joey notes that following tonights match Shane will require surgery for his arm, and he is also suffering from a fractured cheek bone and a cracked bone in the roof of his mouth, so naturally Paul Heyman sent him out to talk... He notes that he also has been around for sixteen years, and he has also seen his peers surpass him. He notes that he too was in the WWE, and refers to the night he became the shortest reigning Intercontinental champion in history. For context, Shane is talking about In Your House 4 in October 1995. Shane, then known as Dean Douglas would be handed the intercontinental title by forfeit by the former champion Shawn Michaels. Not the only time Shawn has forfeited a title but thats a topic for another day.

Shane the turns his attention to WCW and has another go at Ric Flair, who he has buried any chance he can for decades now. He then reminds us of his injuries and swears to still win tonight. He is then interrupted by Taz, a man who has made no secret of the fact he wants a shot at Shane's ECW World title. The Franchise would spend the rest of 1998 avoiding defending the title against Taz, but would eventually have nowhere to run, as Taz would finally get his shot at Guilty as Charged in January 1999, and here Taz would defeat Shane for the title. Two weeks after Wrestlepalooza Taz would get sick of Shane avoiding him, and would introduce his own world title, called the FTW championship. On this night however things would get heated as Taz would attack Shane, openly admitting he was doing it to ruin the nights main event. Taz would lock in a head and arm choke that it would take several officials to break.

If you just listen to this match it's a weird one, as the fans are constantly rubbing the styrofoam heads together making a loud squeaking sound as if the match were taking place surrounded by crickets. From the opening bell Snow goes after Douglas' injured arm, locking in an armbar as Shane yells out in pain. The two key story beats going into the match were Shane's injuries, and the mind games that Al had been playing to anger the champion. Watching this match you don't get much of any of this conveyed, as the two have a fairly slow paced match. Shane even at one point uses his bandaged arm to hit Al with a clothesline. A few weeks ago on this channel I talked about a masterful performance by Nigel McGuinness where he would use his injured arms for offence, but would at every turn remind us of the struggle he was going through. This was not that match. After interference from the Triple Threat, Shane would win after 13 minutes, but unfortunately the finish wouldn't go to plan. Al would go to the top rope and attempt a sunset flip, however I'm not sure if he slipped on the rope or didn't rotate enough, but the move didn't go as planned. from here Shane was supposed to block Snows pin and cradle him for his own, but by that point it just looked awkward in a way thats hard to describe in words. By the end of the match the ECW locker room had emptied and surrounded the ring, and after Shane won they came into the ring and raised both on their shoulders, and Shane and Al would shake hands.

This moment in particular angered Dave Meltzer in his review of the match, giving it one and a quarter stars. He was very negative on the show in general calling it one of the worst pay per views of the year. For the record the show would eventually place 5th in the 1998 worst major show award behind November to Remember and three WCW events. Dave particularly took aim at a specific detail near the end of the match, as Shane's manager Francine would enter the ring to distract Al, for which he would hit her with the Snow Plow. Dave pointed out that it made no sense for Shane to show respect for to Al minutes after what he did to Francine. A classic match this wasn't, but thanks to the popularity of Al it was the crescendo of his ECW run.

On the following weeks Hardcore TV, Al would be interviewed by Steven DeTruth. A very solemn and dejected Al would listen to head, and leave without saying a word. Al would continue to wrestle in ECW for another month, but by now he had also drawn the attention of Vince Russo, who was in WWE creative at the time. On May 18th, the former Leif Cassidy would appear on Raw for the first time as Al Snow. Throughout the night Jerry Lawler would be seen with a person under a sheet who he promised to reveal. Later in the night he would claim that he had brought someone to protect him at the announce table, and unveiled Al Snow, with Jim Ross even commenting about that he was back "from his exile from ECW". The story here was that Jerry had apparently promised Al a meeting with Vince McMahon, but the pairing would turn sour right away when Lawler couldn't make the meeting happen immediately.

From here Al would go on to have a WWE career that I can best sum up as 'never, ever boring'. You knew when Al Snow was on your screen you were going to be entertained. Al would initially lose his pay per view debut at the 1998 King of the Ring in a tag match, teaming with Head against Too Hot, the early heel version of Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor, who would later become Too Cool. Al would lose when Christopher pinned head with the use of a bottle of Head and shoulders shampoo, because for those three seconds the Head had shoulders, and special referee Jerry Lawler counted the three. I promise thats a real thing that happened, that was overshadowed by something else that night...

Al would eventually find a home in the Hardcore division, becoming a six time champion. Al's hardcore title matches were especially known for leaving ringside and ending up in bizarre places. He would fight the Road Dogg in a blizzard, Hardcore Holly in the Mississippi River, and Boss Man in a bar across the street from the arena. At Unforgiven '99 Al and the Boss Man would take part in the infamous Kennel from Hell match, which consisted of two steel cages with disinterested dogs involved because of a bizarre storyline involving Al making a new friend, a small chihuahua named Pepper. Another highlight of Al's career was his run as European Champion, where he would represent a different country each week with slightly incorrect props. For example when he attempted to represent Greece, carrying a photo of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, mistaking the country for the 1978 film. Theres a reference you probably weren't expecting...

 After his in ring career ended Al became a trainer on Tough Enough, and despite the wackiness of his in ring character, was portrayed as very serious about training the prospective superstars. in 2018 he bought former WWE developmental territory Ohio Valley Wrestling, which promotes shows weekly on Fite TV. As of 2021 he no longer owns the company but as I understand he still runs it. Also if you've ever seen wrestlers or fans in the crowd wearing those collar and elbow shirts, Al was the co-founder of that brand too.

When the subject of the attitude era comes up, it's easy to focus on the much bigger stars, but in each of the major companies there was a diverse undercard of characters that deserve as much credit. If Al Snow hadn't taken a chance by going to ECW to reinvent himself, who knows if he would be one of those fondly remembered stars like he is today.

Celebrities in Wrestling are like a box of chocolates... - YAWC Podcast 2

This is a script from my podcast/youtube video You can find the video on Sunday here: https://youtu.be/_4zPXKUviBg and the longer audio version on Spotify here: https://bit.ly/3LYKdyn

Hello and welcome, to the Yet Another Wrestling podcast number two. Just a quick moment to say this is available on both YouTube and Spotify so please consider subscribing wherever you're listening. In this Podcast I try to talk about more current topics with more of my own ideas in than I put into my YouTube videos.

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We're just a couple of weeks away from Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia and this might well be the first week in a while without much McMahon related drama. It feels like Backlash was somewhat of a morale booster what with that hot crowd and some of the bigger moments on it. But now we're looking ahead to the next one, and probably the biggest thing on that night will be the crowning of a new World heavyweight champion. That belt has grown on me from when I first saw it. If I could change one thing though I'd add ruby's, like the previous World title had, but at least the belt itself isn't red. At the time of me recording this we just have one person who has qualified to the finals in Saudi, and thats Seth Rollins. On Smackdown we'll have two more triple threats and a semi final so by the end of that show we should know who Seths opponent will be. The field right now is Rey Mysterio, Sheamus, Lashley, AJ Styles, Edge and Austin Theory.

From all I've seen this week many seem to think Seth is a lock in to win the whole thing and he might well be. I've gotten to like his new Elton John-esque fashion and gaudy character but I still hate that music. It would be interesting to see this version of Seth carrying a major title. As for who his opponent will be my guess at this point would be Edge. Even though he was just drafted to Smackdown Edge made an interesting case in a video on twitter yesterday. He pointed out that the new World title belt looks very similar to the one he was forced to vacate when he retired the first time, a day after he defended it at Wrestlemania twelve years ago. He then said he'd like to win the belt one last time, and retire once he loses it on his own terms. Whether he makes it to Night of Champions or not, the match he has to quality against AJ Styles and Rey Mysterio should be great.

Speaking of AJ Styles, if they're going to surprise us and give an unexpected result I wouldn't mind seeing him win that match, and beat whoever wins between Lashley Sheamus and Theory and go on to face Seth. As far as I can tell Seth and AJ have had five previous matches on tv, one being on pay per view for the Universal title, and Seth has won most of those matches.

As far as the tournament itself, it's a bit of an unusual format. Two three way matches, then a semi final leading to a final at the big event. When I first heard that I was a bit perplexed, but actually I quite like that they changed the format a bit. It feels these days like there are way too many tournaments, I mean right after this one AEW will soon be beginning two separate Owen Hart tourneys at the same time. I partly consider Triple H to blame for starting this trend, having been the man behind the Cruiserweight classic, the United Kingdom tournaments, the Dusty Rhodes tag team and Mae Young classics. Depending on your tastes, some of us are going to be trying to follow the Best of the Super Jr's and the G1 too.

In AEW news it looks like we have another big announcement coming next week, and it's looking like the Saturday night Collision show will be officially revealed. If I could do a cheap plug I've started making shorts on my YouTube channel every time a big announcement is teased, a sort of 'things that won't be announced' video, so that'll be out early next week. Maybe the biggest thing out of this weeks Dynamite was the pretty shocking turn at the end of the show by Don Callis, who stabbed Kenny, by God, Omega with the screwdriver brought into the ring by the Blackpool Combat Club, giving Jon Moxley his first win over Kenny Omega since Full Gear in 2019. Callis' relationship with Omega has been well established for a very long time now, so I hope they have a strong enough reason to have done the turn, because that was a big moment, and I hope it wasn't done in haste. I couldn't hear anything Callis was saying but he did keep pointing to the scar on his head from when Moxley hit him, accidentally cutting him enough to require stitches. Perhaps it's as simple as that. The attack happened on the March 29th Dynamite, the same night Omega had an IWGP US title match with Jeff Cobb. If you recall, right before the match Tony Schiovone approached Omega to tell him about the attack, but Kenny was too focused on his upcoming match, so maybe Kenny's reaction is what caused Don to do what he did this week. I'm hoping we hear from Callis on this coming week's Dynamite and hopefully we make some progress towards Double or Nothing, as we currently only have two official matches set so far, the World and Tag title matches.

In slightly related AEW news that was announced on Friday morning, London based promotion Rev Pro are going to be hosting their biggest ever event on the day before All In. It's going to be at the Copper Box arena, which was built for the London 2012 Olympics, and as far as I know has only ever hosted pro wrestling once ever, and that was NJPW Royal Quest in 2019. On the same day fellow London based Progress wrestling will also be running about an hour earlier, so unfortunately they're going to clash. Progress are running at their home venue the Electric Ballroom in Camden, and earlier in the afternoon US based indie Defy Wrestling will also be running there. Back in 2018 when Progress had their Coast to Coast US tour they had a stop in Seattle which I think was assisted by Defy, so its nice to see Progress return the favour. When All In was first announced it was pretty much expected that other companies would run shows in London especially those too. I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland based ICW put a show on too, they ran I think at midnight in Wales on the Clash at the Castle weekend, and they have ran in London before. As I said before this will no doubt be Rev Pro's biggest ever event, it's also their eleventh anniversary show. It's also worth noting that one of Rev Pro's biggest stars is Will Ospreay, so it'll be interesting to see if he will be there given that the weekend will be a couple of weeks after the G1 ends, so he might be in need of a rest by then.

And in one more story that caught my eye this morning, EC3 who wouldn't normally be on my radar told The Wrestling Outlaws podcast that following the brawl out at All Out, he contacted Tony Khan, emailing him an inspirational message about what it takes to be a leader. You might be shocked to hear that Tony never replied, e had a lot on his plate to deal with in the days that followed that event and frankly I wouldn't have been checking my emails either. I'm sure EC3 meant well so I'm not going to mock him too much but I do wonder what he was expecting might come of it. If you're ever feeling inclined to send an unsolicited inspirational email to someone you don't know well, ask yourself what EC3 would do. and maybe do the opposite.

YouTube section:

And so with no real transition  heres the main topic I have for today. Celebrity involvement with wrestling has had a very dubious history to say the least. Many credit the success of Wrestlemania 1 with the involvement of Cindi Lauper and her friendship with Captain Lou Albano, along with Liberace, Muhammed Ali and more. From there we get into Mr. T getting in the ring at Wrestlemania 1 and 2, not trusting Rowdy Roddy Piper to do business as planned. Fast forward 25 years, and Mickie Rourke could have had a much better Wrestlemania moment had he trusted Chris Jericho. What happened there according to Jericho, is that he did a joint interview on Larry King Live with Rourke ahead of Wrestlemania, where he was talking trash to Rourke, but doing it completely in character. Now Rourke who actually trained in the ring for his role in The Wrestler, a movie I keep threatening to cover on my channel, but he clearly couldn't tell when a wrestler was working with him, as this caused Rourke to feel threatened. When we got to Wrestlemania, Mickie apparently arrived with Frank Shamrock, brother of Ken for attitude era fans, to be his backup if Jericho tried anything. To me mostly because of my love of The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke is the one that got away in terms of celebrities I would have wanted to see in a match, but as a silver lining we got to see Ricky Steamboat come out of retirement and put on two amazing performances at Mania and Backlash, so theres one good thing to come out of it.

The ones that got away are such an interesting thought to me. For many years Shaquille O'Neal was one of those, specifically in a match against the Big Show that was rumoured on and off for many years. Eventually they had a brief moment when Shaq entered the Andre the Giant memorial battle royal at Mania 32, but it wouldn't be until March 2021 that he would have an actual match, in AEW of all places. I think it's fair to say that when the Cody and Red Velvet versus Shaq and Jade Cargill match was announced most of us had low expectations from all the other poor celebrity matches that have proceeded it. O'Neal himself didn't help this by barely bothering to promote the match in the way he probably should have. The whole point of bringing famous faces in is to use them to promote your show after all. To be fair though I haven't seen it since but I remember really enjoying the match, but the pedant in me still wants to know what they were thinking with the empty ambulance bit at the end. What were we supposed to think when they did that?

With that said I'm going to pose a question to you here, is there a celebrity, an athlete or someone who could have had a match or even made an appearance, that you wish had that didn't. I'll give you another example from Wrestlemania 19, I kinda wish a famous rapper had stepped up to John Cena. I doubt anyone like Eminem would have showed up to answer the challenge Cena put out, but anyone answering the call would have been preferable to the promo Cena ended up having to cut to cardboard cutouts on the stage. If you have an idea like1 one of those celebrity matches that could have happened, let me know in the YouTube comments.

This past week Bad Bunny, a man who I admittedly know nothing about beyond his WWE appearances, put on a show stealing performance in his match with Damian Priest as Backlash. Of course a big part of that is the slew of people who ran in, it was especially cool to see Carlito and Savio Vega, and of course Damian too, but Bad Bunny definitely held up his end. He's not the only outside celebrity to turn heads in WWE lately either, as Logan Paul has impressed far beyond what anyone expected of him every time he's wrestled, even going as far as to main event with Roman Reigns. Lets go further, Pat McAfee and Johnny Knoxville have both put on stellar performances in recent history. If it hadn't been for the pure nostalgia of seeing Stone Cold Steve Austin having one more match, my absolute highlight of Wrestlemania last year would have been Knoxville and his match with Sami Zayn. Isn't it interesting that the two biggest moments from last years Wrestlemania involved Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, and this year they were in a main event together. That only dawned on me when I was writing this.

The lowest point for me at least, was the Raw Guest host era. I thought about covering it a while back so I looked up a list of all the Guest hosts, and there were way more than I thought. Maybe I just repressed a lot of it. There were one hundred and five individual guest hosts from June 2009 to April 2016, plus the Muppets who I'm counting as one act, so 106. Over seven long years. Of that 106, thirteen were injured or retired wrestlers, leaving ninety four celebrities. Many would just take part in talking segments, and you could absolutely tell who couldn't care less about being there.Off the top of my head without researching them all, the ones I remember being good were Jesse Ventura, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and the aforementioned Muppets. Maybe Hugh Jackman too when he decked Dolph Ziggler. Contenders for the worst? Lets not get into that right now, although one guest host that I'd totally forgotten about was Grumpy Cat. There is a ton of evidence for WWE being stuck in the past but never forget their flagship show was once hosted by a meme.

Since I've had a go at WWE I'll be fair and point out a naff AEW cameo too. When Miro arrived in the company and had that bizarre video gamer gimmick or whatever that was supposed to be. On the September 30th 2020 episode of Dynamite in a pre-taped segment, Miro was planning a bachelor party for Kip Sabian, when he would be joined for a game of Pac Man by Billy Mitchell. I have no idea how well known he is in America, but I had no idea who he was, and I had to have that explained to me by fans on twitter. Knowing who he is now and why he is famous, it felt like an odd choice on a few levels. Billy is famous for appearing in the documentary King of Kong, and claiming to be the greatest Donkey Kong player ever. He's very controversial though as many claim that he is actually just a cheater, and he has been very litigious towards those that accuse him. Why you would have him appear in a random segment on a pro wrestling show is curious then his presence being a surprise and leading to nothing going forward. He wasn't even mentioned by name, making this seem even worse.

At the start of this I used the word 'dubious', not to be relied upon, to describe the history of famous personalities getting in the ring. For every spectacular moment like Logan Paul Launching himself through the air, theres Jeremy Piven repeatedly saying Summer Fest instead of Summerslam. For every Bad Bunny, theres a Kevin Federline, in music and in the ring. The bar for celebrity involvement in wrestling feels really high right now, but for so many years it's been at rock bottom, and there are tons of examples that I haven't even hinted at. I can only speculate on this, but I wonder how much of the success of all the names I mentioned earlier is due to them being aware of the stigma caused by poor performances in the past. How much of it involved wanting to prove the fans wrong for doubting them? I'm not aware of Logan ever expressing that he was a fan before joining WWE, but I've heard Bad Bunny was, and Pat McAfee knows his stuff too. Maybe we suffered through guest hosts, to get to the performances we see these days, or maybe, I'm just thinking too much, and booking celebrities in wrestling is like a box of chocolates, I'll let you finish that quote.

A History of Pro Wrestling and the Jerry Springer Show

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/dQ9GgLNNx54

If you grew up in the 90's like me, chances are you remember what we now know as Trash TV. You could even argue that some of what we were seeing in the attitude era fell under that label, similar to the likes of Jackass and shows like it that followed. There was however one undisputed King of trash TV, and that was the Jerry Springer show. Starting in late 1991 as a fairly earnest and tame looking talk show that tackled political issues. That would change with the arrival of a new producer in 1994 and his show would make a drastic change, addressing more extreme subjects. Springer would host some of the most bizarre segments ever shown on television. From Klan members debating Jews to a man who married a horse, with much of it feeling less real as the years rolled on. In the words of Jim Cornette talking about the show "when they ran out of real knuckleheads it became a work", but more on him and Springer a bit later.

Before I begin I'd like to remind you to please leave a comment of consider subscribing if you like this video, and let me know if I miss any wrestlers that appeared on the Jerry Springer Show.

Why am I talking about the Jerry Springer though? Well a few months ago I made a video of every instance I could find of wrestlers appearing on Saturday Night Live, and the passing of Jerry made me think of times he hosted wrestlers on his show. Unlike SNL though it's likely impossible for me to find every one, as for an undetermined period of time many wrestlers who hadn't yet made it would appear on the show, and a few would be discovered after they were famous. These wrestlers would be booked with the help of a wrestler known as Jamie Dundee, who was most famously a member of the team PG13 in ECW and WWE, and was an early part of the Nation of Domination, rapping the group to the ring in his one Wrestlemania appearance. He was the Son of Memphis Wrestling star Bill Dundee, who had a lengthy feud with Jerry Lawler back in the day, and was also known for being a loose cannon in shoot interviews.

So that all said I'm going to show you some of the more notable appearances that I found, and one that nearly happened, and where better to start than the Bad Guy? On an episode aired on January 17th 1996, Springer welcomed 11 year old Hydeia and her friend Tyler who were both diagnosed with aids at a very young age. The two had been on the show two years earlier and had married each other in a friendship ceremony, whatever that means exactly... According to Tyler years later the producers had asked them both who their heroes were and he had mentioned WWE star Razor Ramon, but he had no idea that they would get to meet him until he showed up on the stage.

If you know Springer for the anarchic brawls that would take place on an almost daily basis, you'd be forgiven for expecting the worst of this segment as the Bad Guy walks out, but it actually was as wholesome as it possibly could have been. Razor would invite the two to Wrestlemania 12, and hand his intercontinental title to Tyler, who claimed to still have the belt in a 2016 interview with WWE. Hydeia in the same interview years later said of Razor "Even though he had the bad guy persona at the time, he was really cool and awesome. He really seemed to care about us and wanted to make us happy." She went on to talk about how good it felt for her to have such a public figure show her such support. It's not clear what Tyler went on to do with his life, though as of the WWE interview he had a family of his own who have grown up HIV negative. Hydeia is more a public figure, as she has since childhood continued to be an advocate for spreading awareness about the disease.

Brace yourselves, because it's time to talk about Jim Cornette again. In a segment from his podcast three years ago, Cornette noted that one time he was close to going on the Springer show, but it never actually happened. For a bit of context before I go in, in the Mid 90's when Cornette was booking Smokey Mountain Wrestling, he hired a team known as the Gangstas, Mustafa and New Jack. If you don't know much about New Jack I strongly recommend that you go and watch the Dark Side of the Ring episode about him (after this of course), as he goes into detail about his time working for Cornette. There isn't really way to sugar coat this, but the gangstas, New Jack in particular would take full advantage of being black wrestlers being booked in the South in the early 90's. New Jack would fully play up to this in promos, going as far as to incite hatred from the fans. He would even go as far as to refer to real life new stories, such as a horrendous line relating to OJ Simpson that I'm not even sure I can repeat on YouTube... A fan had questioned Cornette as it had been reported by Dave Meltzer in April 1995 that a segment was supposed to be taped on the Jerry Springer show but had been scrapped. In the following issue Dave went into more detail, claiming that WWE had blocked the appearance because in the 49 other states that don't get have access to Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Cornette at the time was a WWE personality, and so they wanted to avoid any controversy. Cornette's immediate retort was that it was actually 47 other states, which makes it so much better... Jim claims that someone on the show contacted them having seen the ongoing storyline, and Cornette accepted based on getting a bit of exposure for SMW, and a payday for the wrestlers involved. He goes on to say that word got back to Vince through the Undertaker who worked occasional SMW dates, and soon after Vince called and did his Jedi mind trick, talking Cornette out of doing the Springer show. He then goes on to note that at the time he was still managing Owen Hart and the British Bulldog in WWE, who were also sending talent to Smokey Mountain for his bigger shows, so it really comes down to Cornette weighing his options up and not wanting to wreck his long term relationship with WWE over a short term payoff, and I can't blame him for that.

From here things will only get stranger in this next segment from 1999 titled 'amazing tales'. It begins with a woman having a confession to make to her partner, as these segments often started. The man in the segment being a wrestler known as Anthony Durante, or Pitbull number 2 in ECW, but he's not the only wrestler involved. The woman admits to finding a new man, and out walks of all people the Iron Sheik. Pitbull falls out of his chair, and frankly I nearly did too. If you know anything about the Iron Sheik these days, you know he can barely go a few sentences without bashing Hulk Hogan bubba, and it takes him about 10 seconds until he does it here.  The segment doesn't end with the tradition Jerry Springer brawl, however it does end with Pitbull worryingly pulling a woman out of the crowd to prove that finding someone new wouldn't take long. Television in the 90's was very different.

The next entry is going to be a quick one, and wasn't technically on the Jerry Springer show. Jerry was at one point so popular that he once made a cameo on a show called SMTV live, a British Saturday morning kids show from the late 90's, hosted by Ant and Dec, who simply won't go away. He took part in a sketch called Chums, which was a crap parody of Friends, and I'm really starting to feel old now. Anyway, Jerry's security in the skit bizarrely was Kurt Angle. Kurt even laughed about it on his Instagram when people found the clip a year ago.

Before we leave the 90's I guess we have to briefly talk about Vince Russo, who has gone on record multiple times saying that he and Ed Ferrara would watch Jerry Springer while writing Raw to get ideas. This makes total sense when you look at all of the shows Vince is credited, and I use that word loosely, as writing, especially his initial run of WCW shows which I will go in depth on on this channel eventually for their insanity. Even in his TNA writing days years later he would never really evolve past the late 90's trash tv style, peaking in a 32 man brawl in several locations all at once at the Impact zone, which Jim Cornette has described as a logistical nightmare.

I'm going to end this video with two non wrestlers who are currently employed by AEW, as both Justin RRRRRoberts and Alex Abrahantes both appeared on Springer in the 2000's. By this time Springers show had fallen into a pretty basic formula where every segment would erupt into a pro wrestling style brawl. In Roberts' episode he played a man called Joe, who was on the show to be told that his girlfriend had been sleeping with her own Sister. Many years later in an interview while still in WWE Justin would explain that he was 19 and in College at the time, and was recommended to the shows producers by a New York wrestler called Big Daddy, not that one. Justin said he took the gig as it would allow him a free trip home to Chicago, where he is from and also where Springer used to tape. He then goes on to explain in detail how the story was entirely fictional, and how the way it was produced it reminded him of wrestling.

In Abrahantes' case he was on the show as Alan, there to find out he was being cheated on. As far as I'm aware Alex has never commented on this publicly, but heres a trivia note for you. On the January 25th 2001 episode of Smackdown, clips of both Alex and Justin Roberts are shows auditioning for the first season of Tough Enough.

I wondered how I was going to end this video, but it has to be with a Jerry Springer inspired final thought... Are you ready? Thank you for watching Yet Another Wrestling Channel, if you enjoyed this please comment, like or subscribe.

All In, All Out, Shake the roster about? - YAWC Podcast #1

This is a script for my new podcast that is available on Spotify here: https://spoti.fi/3HK11I2 and YouTube here: https://youtu.be/386uvkyiQOc

I started my YouTube channel in 2021 but got serious about it a year ago this week because I wanted to share my fandom, and share my thoughts also. I'm always looking for new ways to do that and hoping to connect with wrestling fans. In my videos I usually talk about wrestling history, anniversaries, matches or moments that meant a lot to me, or strange but true moments. Here I'd like to talk about more current events. You won't get the breaking news here, but you'll get a take I guess, and I want to know what you think too.

As always I'm so grateful for anyone who gives my channel a chance, so thank you if you're listening to this and I hope you stick around. If you like what I'm doing here please consider leaving your thoughts in a comment, or by clicking like or even subscribing, and I promise I'll try to get better at doing this. This podcast is available mainly on YouTube, but also on Spotify as YAWC Podcast, and maybe more platforms once I figure out how to do that.

Fair warning, this one will be very AEW centric, but I hope to cover more promotions as we go on. I want to talk about three of the biggest subjects this week, and I'll begin with All In, the Wembley Stadium show at the end of August. Admittedly, this one is maybe more important to me than others. I have waited eagerly for AEW to come over to the UK for a long time now. On Tuesday morning I sat at my computer, phone in hand, waiting eagerly for Ticketmaster to mess me around as they do best. I know some fans had problems with Ticketmaster during the presales and getting their codes but I got mine in about 15 minutes, and not too bad a seat. Whatever you think of AEW, it's might impressive that in a day and a half they sold over 40,000 tickets, just in presale. Thats double the company's precious record, twenty thousand at Arthur Ashe Stadium for Grand Slam. Not only that, but in a country they have never run in. It's not all that easy to follow AEW in the UK unless you're a dedicated fan. The ITV coverage is a few days later and cuts segments out, if you want to watch the full show and live, you have to pay Fite TV for the right. I always thought that if they would come over here it had to be a tour of some kind. Why would you fly over an entire roster of wrestlers for one show? Well I got my answer when a single show the scale of All In was announced.

There's been a lot of talk about how this event will take shape. What wrestlers will be involved, what matches, how they will figure in All Out a week later, which has been confirmed to be taking place. On my YouTube channel I've occasionally made AEW predictions, and some times I've hit the nail on the head, and other times I've missed and smashed my thumb with the hammer, but here's my idea for how they book these shows.

I've seen suggestions that AEW should book the likes of Will Ospreay, not an AEW guy but he has wrestled there in the past. I've also seen the argument that AEW should only use their own roster, and I get that perspective, but I kind of disagree. AEW has, when it makes sense often brought in outside stars when it makes sense to. It's a company that likes to introduce its fans to the wider world of wrestling beyond its own reach, admittedly not effectively sometimes. When Nick Gage was the talk of the town following his Dark Side of the Ring episode, AEW brought him in for a match. When Sting was going to Noah to wrestle the Great Muta, they brought Muta to Grand Slam. Here's my suggestion, a New Japan sponsored match, Will Ospreay vs Zack Sabre Jr. It doesn't have to be too high up the card, but it would be two of the top British wrestlers going today, who came up on our indie scene and are undeniably stars.

I'd also like to see some other British wrestling stars maybe just in non-wrestling roles or even as additions to a battle royal or something. Having just signed its fair to assume Nigel McGuinness will be part of the show, but I'm also thinking of people like Nick Aldis and Doug Williams in some sort of British Invasion reunion, hell why not book Harry Smith or David Hart Smith or whatever he's billed as these days, it is Wembley after all, the not quite same stadium his Dad and Bret main evented in. Having said all of this I'm well aware this will be an AEW show at heart, I'm just suggesting ways that they could include the fact that this massive event will be taking place in London.

Maybe that gives you an idea of where I'm going for this card. A week later you have All Out, and to me, that should be your card where you've built a ton of storylines to culminate on pay per view in a traditional sense. All In, to me, should be more like Forbidden Door, where most of the card was build on dream matches between New Japan and AEW stars. Yes there were some stories going in, but it was mostly a card built on one time matches, and that was one of the most popular shows of last year. Thats how I'd build the All In Card.

That would also be in the spirit of how the original All In was booked. Yes there were storylines through Being the Elite, such as Hangman Page vs redacted and Cody Rhodes chasing the NWA world title, but some matches didn't need a build as such, like Kenny Omega vs Pentagon Jr. The main event also, Kota Ibushi teaming up with the Young Bucks against Bandido, Fenix and Rey Mysterio. Just having Ibushi and Mysterio on opposite sides was enough, and I just with they had enough time to work that match as well as they could have, but thats a topic for another day.

I found it really interesting also that right after the Wembley announcement was made there started to be talk of CM Punk coming back. Him missing wrestling, then him having meetings, and then showing up backstage at other shows. I feel like those reports might have been a test to see how fans received the idea of CM Punk coming back. Personally when Brawl Out happened, especially the press conference, I didn't want to see him back until he at least apologised for his actions and words. He did after all do a great deal of damage to both AEW and Tony Khans image with his actions at the press conference alone. I though we'd never see him again, but then I also never thought I'd see him again after he walked away in 2014. I also though we'd never see Bret Hart in WWE again, it took many years, but even he came back in the end.

Here's a trivia note for you, the last time CM Punk wrestled in the UK was on a tour in November 2013, nearly ten years ago. On a bunch of house shows he and Bryan Danielson defeated the Wyatt Family, at a Raw taping that I went to he and Bryan went to a no contest with the Shield, and the following night at a Smackdown taping he and Bryan would again have a no contest with Rybaxel of all teams.

Another subject I'd like to talk about is the upcoming Saturday night show, presumed to be called Collision. Fans my own age might remember playing booking sims such as Extreme Warfare Revenge, or later Total Extreme Wrestling. I loved those games before I got a mac and couldn't play them easily anymore. Tony Khan seems to manage his programming the way I used to run my federation back in the day, which was called TNT, not that one. You sign as many great wrestlers as you can, add as many weekly shows as you can book, until you get bored or burned out and start a new save file, or on Tony's case buy Ring of Honor. AEW's roster has been overrun with talent for a long time now. Think of all the talented wrestlers we don't see often enough. Miro, Andrade, the House of Black and more. They just signed a guy I'm a fan of, Jay White. For half of last year he was IWGP World champion, now he's seconding Juice Robinson in a midcard feud with Ricky Starks, and it's clear AEW already have no clear plans for him. A roster split might in fact be a good thing at this point. I've long thought that Tony needs to delegate some of the booking to others, especially ROH but thats a whole other argument, but a brand split might help to facilitate that. Just yesterday as I wrote this he actually hired a man named Will Washington to help with creative and continuity. Hopefully this is an admission from Khan that he can't book all those hours of television with two more on the way by himself. Dave Meltzer has said many times that every wrestling booker, even the best ones, burn out eventually.

This week with the WWE draft there has been a lot of conversation around the whole concept. Does it even work? Why do they never stick to it? Back in 2002 when the first brand split happened, Raw and Smackdown genuinely felt like two different shows. Not just because of the rosters but the actual content of the different shows. Raw was very angle heavy while Smackdown had some great wrestling. There is a reason people still talk about the Smackdown six. Over time the introduction of a third brand and declines in ratings led to mixing things up, where a little consistency might have helped. Twenty years on nobody trusts the concept given how many times WWE broke their own rules. We don't know however, how AEW will manage a brand split if that even is the plan.

Lets not ignore the elephant in the room here though, CM Punk. Apparently the catalyst for this whole idea. At this point Collision looks to be a two hour show starring Punk and Danhausen versus FTR in a best of 52 series. Obviously there will be more to it than the mates who publicly still like Punk, but it still feels like a way around having Punk backstage on Wednesdays.

Two unfortunate casualties of this are Dark and Elevation, admittedly not all Punk's doing as the removal of those shows is apparently due to a new exclusivity deal with Warner Brothers. Even though the YouTube shows increasingly didn't matter, I'll miss them. Those shows came out at midnight in my time zone, and so I used to watch them until I fell asleep. They were by the end inconsequential, and left me dreaming the Trustbusters theme song which is great by the way.

Dark when it began was a very different show, it essentially hosted matched with talent that wasn't booked on the early Dynamites. Early on we saw great matches like Kenny Omega vs Joey Janela, and matches including Jon Moxley, the Young Bucks and more top stars. The pandemic kind of changed that, as wrestlers who were essentially the crowd would get matches on there, leading to Dark being sometimes two hours of enhancement matches. Elevation came along in early 2021, and while they did try to highlight new stars, it became another dark.

Occasionally they would do storylines in Dark and Elevation, such as the breakup of Joey Janella and Sonny Kiss. They also for a while built up Jora Johl as a new member of the god awful Hardy Family Office, only for him to fade away when AEW started touring again. They even had Britt Baker host her own talk show on a dentist office set, akin to the likes of Pipers Pit, the Barber shop, the Funeral Parlour, the Heartbreak Hotel and many more that I hated as time went on. This week with no Dark or Elevation, AEW metrics on twitter who is a great follow by the way noted that their cancellation led to the longest gap in AEW programming in a staggering twenty six months. As much as I'll miss these shows we do need a gap every now and then. I'm sorry to quote Jim Cornette here but this feels applicable, "how can we miss you if you don't go away?"

I'm going to end this here, and I thank you if you made it to the end. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on anything I said here, and I'll address any comments in the next podcast. Please if you enjoyed this consider leaving a like, a comment or even subscribing. I'll hopefully be back next week with a different topic. Until then thanks for listening.

Which New Orleans Saints player was in an ECW tag team match?

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/d1rtkF6LmtY

For another video I've been watching a lot of ECW from the late 90's lately, and I stumbled across a match I'd never heard of. The match took place in New Orleans, and pitted Steve Corino and his rookie henchman Rhino against Tommy Dreamer and a man named Josh Wilcox. Looking into Wilcox' background I found that he had a history in Football, and at the time of the ECW match had been a Tight End for the New Orleans Saints.

Many, many famous wrestlers have began their athletic careers in pro Football, some with more success than others. In what we now call the territory days of wrestling, it wasn't uncommon for football players to turn to pro wrestling in the off season, to either make some extra income or to stay in the spotlight. Names such as WWE hall of Famers Big Cat Ernie Ladd and Wahoo McDaniel are examples of wrestlers who began in their Football off seasons, but went on to successful careers in the ring.

 Josh Wilcox apparently turned to wrestling for neither of those reasons, as a Seattle Times article from 1997 states that having played College football successfully in him home state Oregon, he was signed then promptly cut by the Minnesota Vikings. Wilcox would not be the only wrestler to be cut from that team... The article presents Wilcox as turning to wrestling having been rejected by the NFL team, and he would wrestle locally a few times in Portland, a formerly strong territory back in the day.

The ECW match would take place on the January 28th 2000 episode of ECW on TNN, and was largely wrestled by Tommy Dreamer and Rhino, with Steve Corino coming in every now and again to put the boots to Dreamer. Tommy would eventually make a comeback though, and would get the tag to Wilcox. Just as it looked like Corino was backing down from the New Orleans Saint, Wilcox picked up a chair and blasted his own partner with it, turning on Dreamer. This would allow Corino and Rhino to claim victory, in this match which would only last five minutes. Post match Wilcox would berate the New Orleans crowd for heckling him when the Saints lose. Steve Corino then takes the mic and calls out Dusty Rhodes, who he was feuding with at the time. He noted that last time they met in the ring Dusty entered through the crowd, so he was ready for that. What he wasn't ready for was for Dusty to sneak attack from the entrance set. Corino's character not yet the sharpest knife in the drawer. Dusty proceeds to clear the ring of Corino and Rhino with his trademark elbow strikes, and finished by hitting Josh Wilcox with a big elbow drop to make the crowd happy.

Wilcox would go on to have two more wrestling matches of note, with one being against current WWE authority figure Adam Pearce, and his final one being against ECW alumni Jerry Lynn. I'll end this with one more fact about Josh Wilcox, as he actually has another tie to pro wrestling, sort of. In 2001 Josh would play for Los Angeles Xtreme, who would go on to be the first ever champions of the XFL. Yes that XFL.