Orchid and Colette Discuss RVD vs. Necro Butcher vs. Kendo Kashin
And also Steiner Brothers vs. Lex Luger and Sting
Hello! This week, my long-time friend Orchid Cugini and I covered a wrestling match neither one of us really liked. As will be revealed later in the conversation, she actually pitched this along with two other options, the legendary SuperBrawl tag match that pit The Steiner Brothers against Sting and Lex Luger, and the incredible (and incredibly flawed) Fall Brawl clash between Scott Steiner and Goldberg. We ended up chatting a lot about the tag match, which rips and is one of the best complete presentations of a match I can recall, including the oft-maligned finish, though the only real issue with it is that Nikita Koloff was pretty much washed — speaking for me, it’s a ***** match.
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Quick note: I’m scheduled to go in for surgery on Tuesday, November 19. The schedule’s looser than it should be at BIG EGG (eternally my fault), but this may end up screwing things up a bit. I’m hard at work on getting as much done as I can to avoid any significant delays when Joseph comes back. If you’re a reader who donated to my GoFundMe, thank you very much! If you’d like to grab something from me before Tuesday, I have a limited number of Gay Community and Andre the Giant Has a Pussy tees, both discounted to $15, as well as a few copies of You Have to Deal With Me Breathing and Flash Pin. In more exciting news, I have a clutch of Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon due to come my way next week, so pre-orders for that are now open. Wouldn’t usually plug all of this stuff, but it’d be something of a relief to have a little extra money going into this thing — who knows how hospital estimates and insurance companies work!
Up Next: Sara Del Rey vs. Claudio Castagnoli, with Robert Newsome of The Atomic Elbow!
Colette Arrand
So, this isn't the worst match I've watched for BIG EGG, but it's down there. Like, way down there, but more towards the Kawada/Foley end of things where the result of a fascinating matchup is a disappointing match than, say, Triple H vs. The Undertaker, a match even those two dipshits acknowledge as a stain on their legacies, which are themselves a stain on the great sport of professional wrestling. Usually at the top of these conversations whoever picked the match will talk about why, and I guess since I chose it from a list you gave me that's what I'll offer up: I was curious! And while the match couldn't live up to my mildest fantasies, I will say that it's one of those matches that reveals additional facets to a wrestler like Necro Butcher's game. His stature and aura are impossible to understate, but he's a veritable ring general here, making something legible out of what was already a pretty bad clash of styles between the WWE-brained RVD and Kashin, who is a fun enough junior heavyweight but hardly to the level that he could anchor a match against a star of Van Dam's stature, though IGF certainly thought he could given that he also had a match against Kurt Angle around this time. The wrong Inoki gets involved in this match, imo: Antonio should have gone out there to stop this shit.
Orchid Cugini
Yeah, it certainly is a stinker. Kawada/Foley is a good comp for this one, but at least Foley has the excuse of being rusty after a five year absence and...well, having Foley's injury history.
I'm glad we both agree in regards to Butcher's ability to structure this match, because it's not something I've noticed in the half-dozen or so matches of his that I've seen. I can see how someone who's only seen the classics (vs. Joe, vs. Lo-Ki, The Cage Of Deaths) could dismiss him as a garbage wrestler, but this match is a counterpoint to that argument. It's deflating to see Butcher eat the first fall and disappointing to watch the match fall apart as a result. But I'm leaving this match with a larger appetite for watch the guy work in unusual contexts, which is probably why I went a full star higher than you. I'm sure I'll end up adjusting this down soon.
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