America’s Most Wanted vs. Triple X (and other Dream Matches!)

I was only barely paying attention to TNA during AMW’s peak, but I remember them getting a lot of hype, especially as WWE was ignoring tags at the time. I know one went on to more success and the other got fat and faded away. Was this the peak of both guys?

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I start off with a pretty notable TNA match, as their first Steel Cage Match takes place between tag team rivals Triple X (Christopher Daniels & Elix Skipper) and America’s Most Wanted (James Storm & Chris Harris)! Come see Elix Skipper be a spot machine, Daniels be smart, and AMW show how they ended up being one of the most talked-about acts of 2003!

Then it’s over to Stampede Wrestling, as we have insanity as CHRIS BENOIT & DAVEY-BOY SMITH make the same team, allying with Brian Pillman & Rob Ritchie against Makhan Singh (Bastian Booger), Volkan Singh (Gary Albright), Great Gama (whose last name is literally also “Singh”) and Larry Cameron in an ultra-clipped Elimination Tag match! And another match from “Dream Matches MVP” Blake Beverly as he takes on Virgil in Aug. 1993! And finally, it’s William Regal versus RECKLESS YOUTH, as the indie wunderkind who just copied his Japan wrestling tapes faces the soon-to-the-WWF guy in 2000!

NWA TAG TEAM TITLES:
STEEL CAGE MATCH:
TRIPLE X (“The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels & “Prime Time” Elix Skipper) vs. AMERICA’S MOST WANTED (“Cowboy” James Storm & “Wildcat” Chris Harris):
(NWA TNA, Weekly PPV 6/25/2003)
* So this is a big deal in TNA’s history- their first Steel Cage match, featuring their top two teams at the time. AMW was a big deal for them, as two singles guys got slapped together and turned into a heckuva duo, while Triple X were three of the flashiest guys at the time doing a “Freebirds Rule” gimmick- Daniels was one of the “under-utilized” guys of the time, having ****-ish matches but never getting sniffed by WWE (probably because he was both quite short AND weirdly skinny, with an elongated head & torso), while Skipper was a major spot-machine and was also stuck in TNA during its formative years, and ended up lacking the pedigree of the other fast-paced guys of the era like Low-Ki & AJ Styles, despite being more acrobatic than either. Not here is Low-Ki. Both teams were in a long-running feud over the NWA Tag Belts, Triple X being 4-0 but always due to outside interference- hence the cage match. Mike Tenay & Don West thankfully explain the whole story in the prelude. AMW are in blue trunks, and Triple X are in black shorts.

It’s a brawl to start, XXX doing a double-team, then AMW, but Harris sells and blades going into the chainlink repeatedly, even though RUNNING INTO CHAIN LINK DOES NOT HURT IN REAL LIFE. XXX works the cut as I note that Elix’s strikes are feather-light, but he manages a run-up moonsault from the middle of the ropes to stop a comeback. Harris is selling really well, flopping around and looking dazed, and gets a desperation lariat- Storm gets the hot tag and reverses Skipper’s inverted suplex into the cage and beats up Daniels, hitting a neckbreaker & powerslam for two. Daniels ballshots his way out of a superkick and kneesmashes Storm’s face into the cage, cutting him open too. Cross-body/suplex hits but Elix is dying out there on the sell-job from the cage spot- Harris gets a tag and beats up everyone, backdrops Elix into the cage, rams Daniels into the sides in powerslam position, spears Elix into the cage, then hits a full nelson slam on Daniels for two! He aims for Catatonic (fallaway slam to spinning thing) but Daniels reverses to Angel’s Wings (sit-out pedigree) for two. Storm clobbers Daniels and tries for the Swinging Noose (tornado inverted ddt) but Daniels counters and they climb to the middle of top rope and Daniels smashes the back of his head into the pole and hits a Flatliner off of there!

Skipper & Harris start moving again with both partners down, and Elix hits a belly-to-belly and a reverse snapmare out of a choke for two, then climbs all the way to the top, where Harris follows him and comes off the top with a standing SUPERBOMB- Elix carefully watching the landing and Harris landing on his feet to diminish the impact, but WOW. The fifteen-second delay between landing and Harris flopping his arm over results in 2.7. Daniels has finally recovered, and hits a 2003-esque spinning inverted DDT on Storm- Harris saves, and puts Daniels up top, where they fight on the top turnbuckle and Harris spears him off for two! Skipper goes for the Play of the Day (That Fucking Spinning Overdrive Everyone Was Doing In 2003) on Storm and doesn’t get all of it, then hits the mother of all flying body presses from the top of the cage and everyone is dead. Elix finally gets two off that, but climbs AGAIN and gets dumped over the top by Harris, leaving Daniels alone. Superkick by Storm sets up the Death Sentence (holding a guy up for a flying legdrop), but the distance is too great so they switch to a splash for two instead. Elix bolts right up to the top but takes a bump to the floor AGAIN, and the challengers hit the Death Sentence with Harris at the TOP OF THE CAGE for the pin at (17:49). Yeah, that’ll do it. New Tag Team Champions!

This match apparently opened a lot of eyes when it happened, and I can see why- you can see a lot of today’s “Build a match around 3-4 amazing spots” stuntshow stuff in it, though this was handled a bit smarter. They immediately had AMW both bleed to justify a lot of slow-moving and set-up stuff to the halfway point, and then after every big move, BOTH GUYS SOLD. Skipper was down for minutes at a time just from getting thrown into the cage, and when Daniels hit the Flatliner, both he AND Storm were dead (fitting, as the flatliner involves you taking a back bump, and this was a top-rope version). Spots are thus able to “breathe” and so we’re not just getting them hammered out all in a row or guys recovering in 30 seconds like in a lot of AEW Trios matches these days. And then the huge Do Your Finisher From the Top of the Cage stuff (right out of 1990s All Japan Women’s stuff) is justified given Daniels kicks out of their finisher (well, it was supposed to be their finisher but they had to improvise when Harris came up short).

Daniels is also a good enough worker that spots like “both guys climb onto the top rope” or “you walk to the middle of the top rope” actually look like natural tactics, as in this case he’s usually trying to escape his opponent or avoid a move or something and just “happens” to end up in position for this great spot. Skipper, meanwhile, is just a spot-machine going from one big thing to the next cuz that’s all he can really do. Like nobody needs to climb to the top of the cage like FOUR TIMES and do two off-the-top bumps, as those diminish the final spot’s impact. Did he ever learn past that?

Rating: **** (one of the better “do a big spot and sell death” matches out there)

BUNKHOUSE BRAWL (Elimination Rules, Getting Tossed Over The Top Elminates You):
DAVEY-BOY SMITH, CHRIS BENOIT, FLYIN’ BRIAN PILLMAN & “THE FABULOUS” RON RITCHIE vs. KARACHI VICE (Makhan Singh, Volkan Singh, Great Gama & “Lethal” Larry Cameron, w/ Abu Wizal):
(Stampede Wrestling, 03/10/1989)
* !!!!! A team with Bulldog, Benoit AND Pillman!?! And… whoever the fuck this guy is!! Okay despite growing up in Red Deer, Alberta, I haven’t seen jack of Stampede really- I was never able to watch wrestling much until I was a bit older and had more of a command of the remote (and my mother HATED it), and Stampede was dead by then. Makhan Singh is the future Bastian Booger Mike Shaw, and Volkan is actually GARY ALBRIGHT, a one-time potential big star (mostly in Japan) who died young. Cameron is a RIPPED black dude dressed like Mister T (complete with mohawk) who shockingly never made WWF, and died in the ring of a heart attack at 41. Great Gama is, um, NOT the superstar Indian wrestler (given that he died in 1960) but a flabby-ish guy whose legit name is Gama Singh, which is hella-amusing given his partners here. Of the babyfaces, Smith is a legit WWF star returning to his big home promotion, Benoit is a nobody rookie, Pillman (with wild curly blond hair) is a future star in the making, and Ron Ritchie is… just some guy. Did stints in Stampede & CWA and stuff. Benoit-sized-ish but flabby-looking.

Pillman starts with Gama and immediately looks like a phenomenal veteran, hitting stuff with perfect crispness, then Smith/Volkan go, Davey-Boy actually looking stronger than Albright (who isn’t nearly as hefty here as he’d get in the ’90s), hitting his Delayed Suplex! Makhan takes a suplex too and nobody will tag him as Bob Brown on commentary names all the cities Stampede visits, which is weird for me recognizing them all as semi-nearby to me- you don’t hear “Grande Prairie” a lot on wrestling TV, ya know? Gama comes in and bounces off Smith via shoulderblocks, then gets clotheslined by Volkan by accident… and we’re back from break with everyone but Smith & Makhan all having been eliminated- oh jesus christ the editing in Stampede XD. Just remember- it’s a House Show-based territory! Makhan catches Smith with a knee & legdrop for two, then bearhugs him, but Davey actually does his own and even lifts the 300+ lb. Makhan off the ground! For 8 seconds! Davey smashes into him and both are down as Brown says the match has gone 40 minutes, and just like that, Abu the manager trips up Davey AND holds his legs dramatically while Makhan hits a Running Splash for the pin at (6:37 shown).

A pretty simple match as was shown on TV- guys doing early-match basics and then we end with the last two minutes of a grueling struggle- both Makhan & Davey had clearly been wrestling a while. Basic “heel cheats” ending, too, and Davey cuts a pretty standard angry promo, promising to beat North American Heavyweight Champion “The Rock” Don Muraco.

Rating: *3/4 (meh- it’s fine. Not enough really shown to know how good it was)

VIRGIL vs. BLAKE BEVERLY:
(WWF TV, Aug. 7th 1993)
* This is a rarity- Virgil in his “Bottom-Tier JTTS” phase, up against his HEEL counterpart, a solo Blake Beverly! Virgil’s in the black & white pinstripes this time. This also has the rare JR/Monsoon broadcast team, Monsoon delivering the whopper that Virgil can defeat ANYBODY on any given evening. 1993 Virgil!

It’s a stall-a-rama to start, as they lock up, Blake complains of hair-pulling, gets slapped for being rude, then tries to shake hands. Virgil uses the front-flip armdrag variant & a dropkick, but badly mangles a crucifix for two. He gets a headlock takeover (looks like he was going the wrong way and Blake’s strength as a “base” saved the spot), but Blake clotheslines him to stop a hiptoss. Blake takes his sweet time between moves, dropping Virgil on the top rope and doing a bad Ric Flair strut, and does the first part of an Oklahoma Stampede but drops Virgil so gently that Monsoon is all over him on commentary for it. Virgil fights out of a resthold but is clotheslined, only for Blake to take too much time on Bret’s Rope and faceplant trying a headbutt- lol he always does that. Atomic drop & side Russian legsweep as we’re all 1985 up in here, but Virgil fucks up the pin (what is he DOING? trying to crawl over him?) but manages a good clothesline off Bret’s Rope. He moves in for a body press and Blake rolls through it… and holds him down for the win (3:35)! BLAKE BEVERLY WINS A SINGLES MATCH! Very unexpected, even for ’93 Virgil, who stuck around another year in this kinda role. This was probably to give Blake some heat to pretend that future matches against Owen, 1-2-3 Kid & others were actually competitive.

Not a bad little match, though it was kept very simple. The structure was fine, but Virgil looked to be losing his grip an awful lot, almost as if he was struggling with a much larger opponent- he was trying all this good technical stuff, but Blake was like 6’4″ and BULKY, so maybe that was screwing up a guy used to more lithe opposition. At this point Virgil was hardly GREAT, but he often put in good jobber performances (this kept him employed for like 2-3 years of his run) but this wasn’t a better one. Much as it pains me to dunk on Virgil.

Rating: **1/4 (flawed and short, but fine)

See? Actual video! Proof that PWI didn’t just make Reckless Youth up!

STEVEN REGAL vs. RECKLESS YOUTH:
(Memphis Championship Wrestling, 04/08/2000)
* Oh yes, REGAL vs. RECKLESS YOUTH! So a couple years ago in this column, I was able to prove that Reckless Youth was real and not some elaborate PWI hoax, and here he is wrestling Regal in between his major company gigs! This was after his second WCW run and the same year he returned to the WWF. Regal’s in maroon trunks and talking down to all the “peasants” while Youth is dressed like the most 2000 teenager ever with his silver ball necklace, skin-tight black shirt with no sleeves, baggy red shorts and tightly-shaped haircut. I mean, he looks like an extra in a Limp Bizkit or Crazy Town video. Ugh, the “guys wrestling in normal clothes” era. Regal suggests Youth do himself a favor and just leave, but the indie superstar just stands there blankly.

Youth does a cartwheel & headscissors as Regal very obviously does the “Regal Stoop” to avoid towering over his opponent, which Youth then mocks, so Regal gets infuriated and hits a release butterfly suplex and European uppercut (“Make bloody fun of that, sunshine!”). Regal does the classic forearm to the nose and more Eurocutts, and they trade pins, causing Regal to bail in a huff. The commentary suggests that Youth is matching him “hold for hold” but c’mon this is pretty simple stuff- Malenko this guy ain’t. Regal catches him with a knee and pounds away, but after an abdominal stretch Youth slingshots out of the corner with a clothesline and hits a rolling senton. Regal blocks a spinning punch and forearms him as Lance Russell comments on “Restless Youth”, but Youth catches him with a dragon screw into a heel hook- Regal makes the ropes and counters a sunset flip with a floatover and bridges for the pin at (5:00)- well that was fast! Youth gets on the mic after and puts over Regal as maybe the greatest technical wrestler in the world. Regal appreciates it, but stones him on a handshake (“Why would I want to shake hands with this scrubby little urchin?”).

A very simple little match- Youth, who digs his Japan stuff, can’t have been happy doing the job in only 5 minutes to a Bret Hart-style reversal, but hey- it’s Regal, a much bigger star on the food chain. Competently wrestled match, but basic and short, and Youth never really stood out. Given the stakes he might have been wanting to make a tape-trader classic to get noticed but Regal might not have been up for it.

Rating: ** (solid and basic, but not outstanding- just two guys chain-wrestling and trading shots until one wins)