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Trainwreck Matches

Hola Mr. Keith, just had a couple of questions that I think would stimulate conversation on the blog, and I'm curious your take on them. It's on the subject of Train wreck style matches and ridiculous bumps that arise from them. 

1. Which match do you find more entertaining, and why? Foley / Rock "I Quit" or Angle / Shane "Oh sorry did you land on your head? let me help you through this glass pane".

I don't know if I've mentioned/stressed how much I fucking HATE Rock/Foley Halftime Heat recently, but I do.  I thought it was a ridiculous, business-exposing pile of Russo-fied bullshit, although Rock's line about the salsa was awesome.  Shane/Angle was great, although as noted the plate glass window should have been the finish because the guy was SUPLEXED THROUGH A FUCKING WINDOW.  So they both kind of bugged me in different ways.  

2. I know "I Quit" got out of hand toward the end there, but was the plan for Shane's match always to essentially beat the guy within an inch of his life and let him take bumps on cold, hard, concrete? Who comes up with these things?

Shane, believe it or not.  He loved doing that stuff.  

3. What's your favorite "Trainwreck" match of all time?

Raven/Richards v. Pitbulls, duh.  

4. Whats your favorite "Sick bump" of all time? 

Cactus Jack taking a Pedigree into the thumbtacks at Royal Rumble 2000, because it MEANT something and turned HHH into a big star for many years to come.  It was this guy who was the master of brutality in a blood feud with someone with everything to prove, and after 20 minutes of kicking each other's ass HHH showed that he just wanted it more by going where Cactus couldn't.  

5. How did you feel about the Edge / Foley vs. Funk / Dreamer Hardcore match they did a few years back? 

I don't remember it but apparently I gave it a good review when I watched it.  I also give an extra 1/2* for Lita's involvement around that time, though.  

6. Are there any matches you find hard to watch because of the level of brutality involved? Obviously watching matches involving he-who-shall-not-be-named is difficult, but I mean matches involving two still (relatively) healthy competitors.

Ever tried to watch the barbed wire match where Sabu won the World title from Terry Funk? I don't recommend it.

Awesome! Happy New Year (Do they celebrate that in Canada?)

Yes, but we spell it with an extra "u" for some reason.  

Comments

  1. Dreamer/Funk vs Foley and Edge is fantastic. One of my favorite matches.

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  2. That HHH-Cactus feud still stands as one of the best examples of a guy selflessly laying himself out to get the other dude over.

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  3. I couldn't agree more, just an awesome match. Foley is so good as a heel.

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  4. Was it on one of those ECW ppvs? Never heard of this one

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  5. ECW One Night Stand 2. It might be on youtube. The whole show is great.

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  6. The Angle/McMahon streetfight is ****1/4~****1/2, a great match in an era of great matches so it kinda gets forgotten about. But it was an amazing brawl and well worth seeking out. The ending should have been the suplex through the glass, Angle carting McMahon back to the ring for more stuff was anti-climatic.


    The Rock/Foley match at the Rumble was too brutal and the crazy chairshots at the end were terrible... in general Rock wasn't THE ROCK yet, he was an awesome character with great charisma, but only a so-so worker. He rushed through the chairshots and it really hurt the drama he was trying to build.

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  7. Scott, I think the emailer's question was referring to the Royal Rumble match, with Foley in cuffs and getting nailed with all the chair shots (ending with the pretaped "I quit!" piped in). The Halftime Heat match was a week later.

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  8. I agree; the I quit match was the one that was featured in Beyond the mat

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  9. Hey I thought no big star laid down for HHH so you must be wrong about that ;-)

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  10. Obviously Mick wasn't a big star :)

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  11. Does Blood Generation vs. Do Fixer count?

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  12. It's true. Poor Triple H can't break the glass ceiling because big stars like Brock Lesnar refuse to job to him.

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  13. Scott,
    You apparently hate Halftime Heat so much that you rail against it even when the question is about a different Rock/Mankind match.

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  14. "Shane, believe it or not. He loved doing that stuff."


    Of course he did. Taking insane bumps isn't as big a deal when you're not a day-to-day worker and can take as much time as you need to recover.

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  15. Yup. My unsolicited opinion: Rock/Foley is somewhat entertaining but a bit too sick for my taste. But I love McMahon/Angle.

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  16. I don't give a shit if you have the rest of your life to recover, taking suplexes through glass and falling off giant titan trons takes massive balls and is indeed a big deal.

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  17. Steiner/HHH at the 2003 Rumble (aka Stumblebomb 03) is a fantastic train wreck, from Steiner's purple thong to literally collapsing from exhaustion five minutes in to his endless overhead suplexes to the shitty DQ finish that accomplished nothing but extended the pain for another month.


    Oh, you meant the GOOD kind of train wreck! Yeah, Shane/Angle and Catcus/HHH are still the bee's knees.

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  18. I also hated the I Quit match. It still makes me cringe for all the wrong reasons, especially after seeing Beyond the Mat.

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  19. I'll go one-by-one here:

    1. Isn't the original emailer talking about the Royal Rumble match with Foley/Rock? Even so, I have to go with Shane/Angle. I just can't watch the Foley/Rock match anymore, it's like a snuff film to me.

    2. Yeah, Shane is fucking insane.

    3. I love the "trainwreck" type matches, the WGTT/Titus & Whitmer and the match at TLC were awesome. My favorite would have to be the Raven/Dreamer "Use my sign" match, but the match Scott mentions is damn good too.

    4. I hate "sick bumps", and really hate the fact that wrestlers get famous because of them. Insert my usual "Fuck Jeff Hardy!" comment here...

    5. This is the ONS II match, right? That match was fucking sweet. The Beulah appearance adds * on it's own, so...


    6. I have seen the Sabu/Funk match many times, and it doesn't really get to me anymore. I find the Foley/Rock match, or HITC II where Foley takes a 3 story fall twice to be much worse. Not to mention various shit with guys from Japan or CZW who do matches with $10,000 worth of fluorescent light tubes or huge panes of glass.

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  20. Lita's tits gave everything around that time an extra 1/2*. Best use of cleavage by anyone in wrestling, ever.

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  21. London/Kendrick vs Taylor/Regal vs Hardyz vs MnM (I may be forgetting a team. Was E&C involved)

    *shudder*

    Just the way Mercury's blood spatters on the floor makes my stomach churn a few times.

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  22. Oh man. The purple manthong was too much. One of the funniest matches of all time. Meanwhile, Angle and Benoit put on an absolute clinic in the SD main event. One of my favorite matches of all time and truly symbolic of the disparity between SD and RAW during that timeframe.

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  23. You know you're shitty when A) you make Boston briefly cheer for the most hated guy in the company (before they said fuck it and booed both men out of the Garden) and B) you're a Did Not Play-Coach's Decision (the hypothetical coach, not Coach himself) at Wrestlemania after title matches at the previous two PPVs.

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  24. I think Terry Funk was wrong when he said "Vince McMahon is the most hardcore guy out there". Shane McMahon would like to have a word.

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  25. You would have thought that after the Hell in a Cell match he wouldn't have done something like that.

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  26. the finish is just too much for me (especially after seeing the segment in "Beyond the mat" I really can't stand watching it).

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  27. Oh man. I forgot that was in Boston. It was my freshman year in college and I didn't have a lot of friends yet, certainly no wrestling friends, and was also short on cash. But to this day I regret not going to that PPV. C'est la vie...

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  28. It's a big deal in a bad way. How are the guys working a full schedule supposed to keep up with being suplexed through windows and falling off Titantrons without killing themselves?

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  29. It's stuff like that which perpetuates the love/hate relationship fans have with the McMahons. At times, we hate when the McMahons get put on a similar level as highly trained athletes. We also hate when Vince's dementia seems to get the best of him in his booking decisions. Yet, it's hard to watch a Shane match or even something like Punk and McMahon's brawl and not think: These are the toughest and coolest fellas to ever run a publicly traded company.

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  30. You're right. If Shane never falls off the titan tron, Viscera never hurts himself trying to attempt that triple moonsault off a 37 foot ladder. Never forget.

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  31. I was thinking along similar lines because Goldberg vs. Lesnar came to mind when I saw the title.

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  32. Nah that's all the teams, saw this one recently-Absolutely awful luck for Mercury

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  33. Are you being deliberately obtuse? You don't think the car-crash style was a major factor in injuries getting out of control during that period?

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  34. You gotta give them a lot of credit. Shane proved he's a fucking lunatic, and as for Vince... Well, I'm sure that plenty of guys have had conversations with promoters asking them to take crazy bumps, and the wrestler responded with "I don't see you doing that crazy shit". Yeah... Vince never has that conversation. And he's 4 years older than Ric Flair, just thought I should throw that out there.

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  35. Instead of using Mick Foley, New Jack, The Hardys to illustrate your argument you use...Shane McMahon? Because he fell on a landing pad once? And you think wrestlers saw that and thought what exactly? Who was in competition for a spot with Shane that felt they needed to top his shit?

    Is that how Steph leapfrogged Shane in the McMahon hierarchy? Did I miss her topping Shane's leap from Summerslam the next night on Raw?

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  36. As far as worst single spot I've ever see, that probably takes it. Either that or Sid breaking his leg.

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  37. Pretty much ended his career, though he's a trainer for WWE now.

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  38. I love the Halftime Heat match. I still find it ridiculously entertaining. I think the only thing that annoyed me was the finish with the stupid forklift cam.

    *picks up squash*

    "The Rock doesn't even know what THIS is!"

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  39. Can't believe it's been 10 years since that show

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  40. Goddamn that makes me feel old and I'm only 26.

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  41. Beyond the Mat + modern concussion science means I can't sit through it anymore.

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  42. A little part of my love for the product died that day. It was just so obvious, when Foley said that during Heat, that that was where they were going. I wasn't twelve or anything at the time; I was a full blown, dare I say it, smark, but it was just so, well, obvious, that it was bad.

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  43. They weren't made in the Good Ol' USA?!

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  44. The fuck pin on Beulah was so perfect for Edge's character at the time...

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  45. That should be allowed to play out to see where they are going?

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  46. Scott has said it before... when it comes time for Vince to get his ass kicked for the company he steps up.

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  47. Yes. She actually hit a space flying tiger drop off the tron onto a pile of barb wire wrapped flaming tables.

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  48. Hey that's capitalism... the highest quality goods at the best price

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  49. Taylor? Who is that? I don't recall this match...

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  50. Oh that Sid injury was awful... I was watching with my grandmother of all people and she couldn't believe what a real injury someone got in this "fake" sport.

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  51. HowmuchdoesthisguyweighJanuary 7, 2013 at 7:04 AM

    Rock vs Foley feud doesn't get enough love.... They had title matches at 4 consecutive PPV's and they all meant something, felt unique and never felt overdone.

    They also had 3 other bit matchups on Raw and Halftime Heat that all had a different feel. Compare that to Sheamus vs Del Rio or something. Foley and Rock had a I Quit Match, Last Man Standing, Empty Arena and Ladder match and they didnt need a gimmick PPV to get there.

    Angle vs Shane is awesome btw

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  52. Why would this get a down vote? Is grandma not over? Can she not work?

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  53. it was at the December 2006 PPV, and Taylor is none other than Squire Dave Taylor.

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  54. Must have been Sid, upset that you reminded folk of his injury.

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  55. I restored balance. Your granny is over at my place all the time.

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  56. Well the jokes on you because she has been dead for nearly a decade!


    (This thread took a weird turn)

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  57. On the internet (eh?), random down votes are to be expected. Don't take 'em personally, especially because there are a few lurkers that almost attack certain posters with those down votes as soon as a comment by them is posted... unless you're Dougie, then ya get a down vote as part of a nearly knee-jerk reaction.



    On a side note, I hope this post gets as many down votes as possible.

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  58. We can burn our computers down and pretend it never happened....

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  59. Then an up vote is you.

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  60. I complied with your wishes!

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  61. I'm at work... they frown upon that... or at least they did the first 6 times I did it.

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  62. Agreed. And, honestly, what did that skull-bashing spot add to the match? I guess Rock's 'desperation' to finish off Mick, but it just seems a bit unnecessary. At the very least, why not do it a bit more protected? If the storyline was to get Rocky over as some sadistic killer, then I guess there is a context for it, but it's the Rock; he went back to goofy, cocky Corporate heel right away.

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  63. Cool, thanks. I'll have to look that one up. I never saw any of the WWE "relaunch" ECW stuff

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  64. The first and second One Night Stand ppvs are both pretty great. Worth checking out.

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  65. I still love Halftime Heat also. But, I'm with you that the forklift camera was the worst. Maybe it's just nostalgia since I was 13 when the match happened and was a huge Foley fan, but I can still watch that match and enjoy it.

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  66. Their Royal Rumble match is still my favorite match of all time. The story those two guys told, both in the feud and in that match, is fantastic stuff. Foley's Smackdown promo where he introduces Cactus Jack as the "replacement" was a holy-shit moment, and the brutality of that match, with both guys busting their asses, never gets old for me.

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  67. Watch the first two One Night Stands and then forget everything else ever existed.

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  68. Yeah, tend to agree with this


    It's a lot of fun but that stupid stupid camera ruined it and totally took you out of the match


    Didn't Foley write something along those lines in one of his books, about how he didn't know they'd filmed that shot till he saw it back himself

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  69. Should have used a stunt granny instead, she knows how to work

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  70. And don't rip tna. That leads to lots of down votes.

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  71. Caliber_Winfield_69420BoobiesJanuary 7, 2013 at 1:45 PM

    The nerd rage flows around here, my friend. I got down-voted once for having a bisexual girlfriend who liked porn.

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  72. Caliber_Winfield_69420BoobiesJanuary 7, 2013 at 1:48 PM

    If only some devilishly handsome bastard recapped that entire feud....oh wait

    http://scrublife.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/the-greatest-feuds-of-all-time-triple-h-vs-scott-steiner-2002-2003/

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  73. Caliber_Winfield_69420BoobiesJanuary 7, 2013 at 1:51 PM

    I always wonder how absolutely pissed Triple H was that night. I mean, he had one of the worst matches of all time, and then Benoit, a vanilla midget went out and put on a classic. I would have loved to hear his excuses, and downplaying of Angle's match "There was no psychology, and not a SINGLE sleeper hold"

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  74. Caliber_Winfield_69420BoobiesJanuary 7, 2013 at 1:52 PM

    Get a hold of Harley Race, he's got to know a few.

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  75. I could see Triple H deluding himself backstage that it was all Steiner's fault and that Angle/Benoit did nothing for THIS BUSINESS!


    "Chain wrestling doesn't draw, *I* draw!"


    *Jeff Hardy looks up from his painting*


    "Hey, man! I draw too!"


    *Jeff puts hand up for high-five*


    *gets Pedigreed*

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  76. I forget who said it, but there was a line on the "McMahon" DVD that Vince wouldn't ask of the wrestlers to do anything that he himself wouldn't do. It was during the rehearsal of Shawn's WM12 entrance, with Vince riding down the zip-line.

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  77. Shit, I would have done that if given the chance. Looked fun as hell.

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  78. I'm guessing Vince never went up to the rafters in the Blue Blazer costume.

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  79. Kinda weird how only him and Regal from that match are still employed by the WWE today.


    It was a great match though, even with the horrible injury.

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  80. And it's gonna happen every damn time you bring her up you lucky bastard!

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