Vader v Dustin Rhodes (WCW Clash of the Champions 29, 11/16/94)
Sometimes wrestling is an easy game. You know, coming from someone who has never stepped foot inside a wrestling ring. But in theory, the principles behind it, all of that, it isn't particularly complicated. You set up payoffs, you pay them off, the audience goes wild. Keep it simple, stupid. Vader is a bully the size of a bin lorry. Dustin is a country boy trying to step out of the shadow of his legendary father. You sympathise with the latter - I speak from experience as my own father is legendary within the human resources sphere at Panasonic and once travelled to Japan for a week or something, though I have about as much experience with human resources as I do stepping in a wrestling ring. I digress - and you wish for the former to receive the comeuppance he thoroughly deserves. A bully getting his rear end handed to him is about as simple and satisfying a narrative as you'll get in any medium. And they set that up and pay it off all within like 90 seconds, and it was just about the best payoff to 90 seconds of setup that you'll ever see. Vader keeps shoving Dustin into the corner and walloping him with those big fists, backing away shouting "you don't want it, boy!" while Dustin curls up in the turnbuckles. Like all bullies Vader thinks the kid won't smack him back, and as his confidence grows so too does his cruelty. He enjoys hurting people and making them feel weak. And then Dustin decides no I will NOT be having this tonight, sprints out the corner with a double-leg takedown and slaps the holy dogshit out of the bully. He even rips Vader's mask off, slaps him with it and throws it away, then clotheslines him over the top and pummels him some more on the floor. It's legit one of the greatest babyface spots ever and the crowd reaction is biblical. Perfectly set up, perfectly paid off. Vader's selling was incredible during this, just the way he looked so overwhelmed, really leaning into being the bully who bit off way the fuck more than they could chew, reconciling with the fact he's in a fight with someone and not just beating up someone who won't fight back. He even slips out the ring for a breather and tells the ref' to keep Dustin back, which must've been one of the first and only times you've ever seen Vader do that. Dustin was amazing as well. It's kind of ridiculous that he's actually slightly taller than Vader (though certainly not heavier), but he never FEELS it and that adds to how impressive his bursts of aggression are, how much it feels like he's overcoming insane odds. The bit where he catches Vader in the corner with a powerslam was incredible, then he tries the bulldog and gets yeeted clean over the top to the floor. Every hope spot and cut-off, every comeback, basically every second of this ruled. About as great a 12-minute match as you'll ever get.
This might be the greatest match ever in which three quarters of the participants are faux martial artists and two of them can barely run the ropes. All four guys have at least one moment where they do a hokey kung fu pose that they definitely thought made them look like a Bruce Lee movie badass, or like a real-life version of the video game badass their character was based upon. It's the best match of every participant's decorated career, which is possibly something only your very best 90s All Japan encounters can say they replicated. Misawa, Kobashi and the lads truly are in elite company with Kanyon, the Sub-Zero knockoff and Ernest Miller before he wore slippers. I don't have a clue who laid this out but it was right on par with the best Pat Patterson director's cuts; a practically seamless flow of set piece kick routines and highspots. You could almost see the wheels turning at a few points with them moving into position for things, but it's hard to ding them too bad when the stuff they wound up getting into position FOR was awesome. Even as a self-professed Adam Bomb stan I'd never have guessed our man Wrath had a performance like this in him. I'd never seen him pump kick someone in the face when he was in the WWF but he surely pump kicked two someones in the face here, then he hit a somersault senton off the apron and basked deservedly in the moment. He and Mortis had a few absolute corkers of double-teams during the Glacier heat segment, including a huge powerbomb/neckbreaker combo and an AMAZING reverse Boston crab/legdrop thing that looked brutal. And speaking of brutal, the transition into the Glacier beatdown was immaculate. First comes the pump kick-senton combo from Wrath, who then props Glacier up against the ring post by holding a chair against his face so Mortis can obliterate him with a superkick. This thing was outrageous and I bet Glacier still gets migraines to this day. Glacier and the Cat threw some of the best kicks of their career, even the ones that landed to the chest looking nasty. Then the ones that landed higher about took someone's jaw off. The chain-wrapped roundhouse kick is pretty close to the perfect foreign object finish. An absurdly fun 10 minutes and one of my favourite PPV openers ever.
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