This seems more applicable here so here I am.

HBK vs. 1-2-3 Kid - 4/27/96 Superstars

Relevant backstory: HBK has just won the WWF title from Bret and is set to face Diesel at IYH: GF, BE in a NHB match.

The match starts with HBK as a ball of fire and funny enough this has the heel/face dynamic backwards. Kid's the one attempting little move after little move only to get thwarted by Shawn because Shawn just outsmarts and overpowers everything he does. Shawn hits this fine looking Scott Steiner tilt-a-whirl suplex:



The only time Kid can get control of the match is when Shawn makes a mistake of his own:



Shawn gets control back very quickly after reversing a whip and doing his trademarked flying forearm + kip-up combo. Then playing into the story of the match, he gets a bit brutal showing that he'll be taking a fight to Diesel later on.





It was a very fun squash match with the little guy trying everything but the bigger guy overpowering and after taking all of his energy having his way with him until the very obvious finish of:



2.5-3*

Awesome little match and write up

Xpac got beaten the **** up there!

HBK/Diesel (c) vs. 1-2-3 Kid/Razor - Tag Title match from 10/30/94

Backstory from what I gather is that Razor took the title from Diesel at SummerSlam two months prior and for some reason this match's happening. Diesel lost the title when HBK kicked him in the face by accident.

No gifs in this one because I couldn't find it to d/l and watched on DM.

Heels attack from behind prior to the bell but faces turn the tide when all the sudden Razor hits HBK with the Razor's Edge but Diesel breaks up the count. Pretty good stuff.

Heels get heat on Kid for a couple of minutes. This heat segment has the very best two handed chokeslam you'll ever see when Diesel hoists Kid up all the way over his shoulders and throws him straight down. It looked brutal. Kid tags Razor but the heels get heat on Razor soon after and keep it for a long time with some clever tag maneuvering and cheating.

Eventually HBK accidentally kicks Diesel again knocking him out. Razor tags Kid and the faces double team HBK attempting pin after pin when hitting big moves but HBK's too strong. Eventually Razor kicks a prone Diesel in the face which wakes up the big man. HBK still staving off the seemingly inevitable drops down when Kid hits the ropes and Kid gets destroyed by a big boot giving HBK and Diesel the win.

Definite 4.5*+ match. A lot better than Austin/Michaels vs. Owen/Bulldog though I suspect it's because this is nearly double the time of that RAW match.

Funny to think that < one month after this that Diesel's the WWF champion.

Thanks. I'm very self-conscious about the write-ups for now. LKJ set a high bar.

I had to d/l an entire disc of HBK stuff to get that Kid match. It also has this which seems intriguing to say the least:
WWE Championship Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
Des Moines, IA (Dark Match; Superstars Taping) • April 30, 1996

Enjoying the writeups too.

It feels a bit apples vs oranges to compare Diesel/HBK vs. Razor/Kid and Owen/Davey vs. HBK/Austin, just because the former is a really fun exhibition that doesn't really advance anything, whereas the latter was a big development in the company's leading angle.

I d/l'ed HBK vs. Jarrett from IYH: The Lumberjacks. I sure don't remember that nickname for a ppv. I wanted to do some Benoit stuff as well though so I picked a very short but manly match...

Chris Benoit vs. The Barbarian - Nitro on June 2, 1997

Storyline: Benoit wants to get a match with Kevin Sullivan. Jimmy Hart (who manages Meng/Barbie/Sullivan) tells Benoit to go through The Faces of Fear to get a match with Sullivan at some point. At this point, Benoit has already beaten Meng the prior week.

Benoit avoids a Barbie charge and chops and kicks him down in the corner.

Benoit avoids another charge and slips behind him to go for a belly-to-back suplex but Barbs swings putting himself in position to take a belly-to-belly instead.

Jimmy Hart inserts himself in the match which allows Barbs takes advangtage of this by clubbering him and then attempting to murder Benoit with a suplex



Barbs follows up by throwing Benoit to a corner to do more clubbering and then sets him up to as Bobby put it "throw him from here (Dayton, OH) to Indiana."



Benoit rolls out of the ring only for Barbs to follow and throw him back in. Barbs goes for this monstrous belly-to-belly again but this is to his detriment.



This enables Benoit to apply the crossface and get the (extremely weak) tap out victory.



Verdict: Worth a watch to see guys kick the crap out of each other for a few minutes. Solid 2* match.

Verdict on reviewing the match: Didn't enjoy. It was too short and nearly all of it was gif'ed but posted anyway as gif'ing this took 4x as long as watching the match.

edit: I'd listened to the review of the match prior to watching. Bryan noted how when Barbie did that botched suplex that if Benoit hadn't ended up getting twisted that he probably would've literally died coming straight down on his forehead and he's probably right.

Referring to the Barbarian as Barbie is Lol

Always loved that belly to belly of the top rope, what a crazy spot

WWE Classics has the Bret Hart v. Shawn Michaels WWF title match from Survivor Series 92 up on YouTube right now. It was tops in my recommendations, so I gave it another watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpJddNlGjxc

It was even better than I remembered, a terrific technical match with tons of great selling and working the crowd (especially Shawn, who had developed a bunch of little heel tricks to keep the crowd into it). Only hitch was the finish, with Shawn coming off the top with the fake-looking dropkick for the sole purpose of Bret catching him and hooking the Sharpshooter.

It’s like a breath of fresh air compared to what we see nowadays.

Doing something I haven't done in a while: watch old wrestling. Binging on WALTER's old matches from PWG that I've never seen. His match vs. Zack Sabre Jr. was amazing. Pure art with WALTER manhandling Zack and Zack attempting to take out both of WALTER's arms to neutralize him. Here's a 5 minute highlight reel of the ~20 minute match:

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Hiroshi Hase, AJPW 1999, Tokyo Dome, May 2, 1999

Kawada beat Misawa for the Triple Crown title at the start of the year, but broke his arm legit on the back of Misawa's head a third of the way through the match and had to vacate the title. This is his first match back.

Hase is a part-timer, but he's a legit amateur wrestling star who finished ninth in the 1984 Olympics (Greco Roman), and he usually looks good in these big matches (there's one against Kobashi I saw previously).

This isn't my favorite match ever, as it has some extended slow parts and a couple awkward spots. I'm posting it because of two absolutely ridiculous uranage suplexes (you think the first one early in the match was vicious, wait until the second one) and the finish of the match. So brutal.

Vader-Misawa for the Triple Crown was the main event of the Tokyo Dome show mentioned above. This was better than I expected, considering neither guy was a spring chicken by this point.

I'd never seen this before but damn did the people want to see Batista break off from HHH. From night after Rumble 05. Batista only talks from 5:45-6:05. The reaction though

Just watched the Benoit/Jericho submission match from Judgement Day 2000. It's a good match, and I'm sure it's been discussed ad nauseum, but Jericho going for the submission with Benoit draped over the ropes and Tim White asking if Benoit wanted to quit was okay, but then kind of ruined when Benoit broke up his crossface that did eventually win it to drag Jericho away from a rope break.

Just took me out of the finish to that match.

First time I've watched this in a good 7+ years. A masterpiece in making a David vs. Goliath into a logical story. Brock overpowers > Rey capitalizes on Brock's mistakes and tries to tire him out > Brock kicks him in the nuts for no real reason and eventually overwhelms him to get a rare submission victory. Highly recommended.

Also watched Punk vs. Brock recently and it goes without saying that that match's incredible.

Watched Okada vs. Tanahashi from Invasion Attack 2013. This is absolutely in my top 10 favorite matches and best matches ever. This is a match that you could show a non fan and they'd love it because it's such a simple story with great movesets. This was also before every NJPW main event went 45 minutes as this went ~25.

Watched simply for the crowd reaction in 1998 and it didn't disappoint

Just watched a really fun 6 man tag from Smackdown 8th August 2002

Cena, Edge and Rey Mysterio vs Eddie, Benoit and Angle

Awesome crisp finishing sequence with 6 greats!

This isn't a match. But, I hope the video is interesting enough.

Ox Baker was an old school heel. If you've seen the movie "Escape form New York", he has a scene fighting the main character Snake Pliskin (Kurt Russell).

I came across this video on YouTube of Baker appearing on "The Price is Right" in 1981.

When I was a child, Ox Baker and Abdullah made me legit fear for their opponents' lives.