Hardcore wrestling has often been called “garbage” wrestling due to the weapons (or plunder, if you we-ill) involved. Whether it be a trash can, a lead pipe, or a car fender, it seems in hardcore matches the more junk you bring to the ring, the better.
Leave it to the brain trust at WCW to stage a hardcore match that was actually held in a dump. Yes, the match took place in a real live JUNKYARD.
Mike Tenay showed up at The Junkyard and tried to explain the rules.
Since the match was unsanctioned, WCW had no idea who would show up (well, of course they didn’t – it must have been a SHOOT).
In a completely asinine move, WCW included a bunch of luchadores in the match – I suppose the idea of having, you know, an entertaining WRESTLING match was an idea foreign to the nimrods holding the book.
All kinds of wackiness took place. At the start of the match, an unidentified grappler tipped over a car that was stacked atop a bunch of tires.
Now I don’t claim to be a Junkyard … ummm … junky, but I would guess that at a real junkyard, they don’t stack cars on tires. That just doesn’t seem to make sense.
At one point, Brian Knobbs put a tire around an unnamed opponent and the guy couldn’t defend himself. Think of the old cartoon where Brutus “tubes” Popeye, and you get the jist.
You’ll not that we’ve had two encounters where we couldn’t tell who was fighting. That’s because the Junkyard was so dimly lit that it was very hard to tell what was going on.
Another fun sequence came when Jerry Flynn tried to spark a car hood with some electrical wires. He hit the hood several times with the wire to no avail. Finally, he gave up and just kinda looked at the wires, and the car miraculously sparked!
Yes, it looked THAT fake.
But I digress.
Late in the match, Fit Finlay gets thrown into the trunk of a cab. Along comes someone (though, of course, you couldn’t tell who) with a forklift…
…which takes the cab over to the car compactor. The “crusher”, as Tony called it, moved down about an inch and a really weak looking fire started.
Did I mention this match had lots – and I do mean LOTS – of really terrible special effects?
Anywho, Finlay had snuck out of the trunk before the cab got crushed. He kicked over a barrel of fire, which led to yet ANOTHER car blowing up.
The fire created a barrier that no one else could get past. Fit climbed over the fence to claim the Hardcore Trophy.
For a match that accomplished nothing (other than giving us all something to laugh about), it was actually pretty brutal on the workers themselves. Over half of them were legitimately hurt during the bout, which is shocking considering how fake it all looked.