Chronicles of NewJackia

I had a lot of partially watched shows needing completed on various streamers and felt like dusting off the old notebook. So, here’s some scores on partial shows which I’ve capriciously titled after my love of Chronicles of Narnia and New Jack (RIP).

WWE Monday Night RAW #1652 1/20/25

4) Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai & IYO SKY) vs. Pure Fusion Collective (Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark) (w/Sonya Deville) — ✰½
5) Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre — ✰ ✰ ✰

Kai and Baszler started with some of the lousiest in-ring I’ve seen in ages. Just working at half-speed unsure of basic rope running sequences etc. and not on same page whatsoever. Stark enters with a springboard dropkick off the ropes that was AWESOME and woke the crowd (and me) up. Whatever Rollins is doing these days isn’t for me, but firm believer McIntyre may be his best suited opponent in the company. Drew brings a thudding intensity that by proxy makes Seth step his game up. Really solid TV main event.

ECW on TNN #10 10/29/99

2) Lance Storm (w/Dawn Marie) vs. Tommy Dreamer (w/Francine) — ✰ ✰½

This was actually a pretty stellar episode of the still in its infancy TNN show. Opened with a rare Sabu vs. Taz singles bout. Tommy enters in black track pants and a black shirt one size too small. I know Storm gets a lot of guff for his robotic style but that wasn’t an issue in ’99 I’m glad to report. He still had a lot of explosiveness and athleticism in pretty much all he did here. And I was actually loving this, but it was curtailed before it really got going (complete with a catfight, Raven run-in, etc. as was their bog standard at the time). The few minutes of wild brawling around ringside and into the first few rows of fans was fun and Dreamer smashing a $6 draft beer on Lance’s skull was au gratin.

WCW Thunder #33 9/24/98

6) Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Disco Inferno — WCW World Cruiserweight Title #1 Contendership Match

— ✰ ✰½

7) Alex Wright vs. Norman Smiley — ✰ ✰½
8) Kanyon (w/Raven) vs. Goldberg (c) — WCW World Heavyweight Title Match — ✰

I’ve been blowing through these Thunder episodes like Sonic speeding toward a chili dog food truck. They’re a blast but not the type you’d expect most people to be tossing out a lot of generous star ratings toward. So, I feel like I have to make a case for the slightly high ratings on the first two bouts. Disco versus Chavo the word that popped into my head was “fluid” while watching it. Not in the regard of it being seamless work – they just packed in as much as they could in the short time they were allotted (sick pescado to floor, Pepe hobbyhorse hijinks, springboard bulldog, etc.). The backstory was this was for a shot at the Cruiserweight championship. Disco won with a surprisingly sick piledriver. Post-match they bring out a scale and determine he’s too fat to fight for Cruiserweight belt for big LOLZ~!  Wright and Smiley was also quite fun. Honest to goodness I think I saw more genuine mat wrestling in this six min. match than all of Monday Night Raw’s run on Netflix thus far two months into it debuting there. Main went 10 seconds but gave it an extra half-star because how insane the audience was here for Goldberg it's just bonkers and unlike just about any phenomenon in wrestling history.

MSW Mid-South Wrestling TV #127 2/13/82

2) Paul Orndorff vs. Brian Blair — ✰ ✰
3) The Junkyard Dog (c) vs. Bob Roop — Mid-South Louisiana Title Match — ✰ ✰½
4) Bob Orton Jr. & Ed Wiskowski vs. Mr. Olympia & Ted DiBiase — ✰ ✰½
5) Frank Monte vs. Ron Cheatham — ½ ✰

Two Tampa boys tussling with Orndorff and Blair. If you only knew JYD from his WWF run, you have to go back and see him in his glory days. Guy was built a like a Grecian statue. Just insane upper-body and arms. And he was over like R.L. Stine at a Scholastic book fair. Tag match was fun, but the finish took place during commercial break. So they re-racked the tape and showed us the fin. Then, as is the norm on Mid-South, they toss on a bonus “standby” match to fill remaining TV time, but in this case, it literally got about 90 seconds before they had to roll credits rendering it null. If you’ve never seen Frank Monte though he’s a reoccurring enhancement guy that looks like a cross between Freddie Mercury and Rocky Johnson.