This Week In WWE Vintage Collection History: Vintage Collection Gets Foe'd
By Aaron Wood Feb 12, 2012 - 4:08 PM
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COLLECTION #194 Mean
Gene welcomed us to the show and announced that this week's show
would be all about classic rivalries inside the squared-circle (which
would technically be just a square) as part of the "Famous Foes"
series. HE said this as if this was a returning idea. Have to say, I
don't remember it. I remember Great Friend Better Enemies, but
that's about it.
Anyway,
back to the axiomatic subject in hand, we would be starting with one
of the most personal rivalries ever, one that started in ECW and
moved to WWE. From being childhood friends to bitter enemies they
had fought in every type of match, including a Loser Leaves ECW
match, here Dreamer finally defeated Raven. But history would look
to repeat itself in 2002 when they met again in a Loser Leaves RAW
match on the June 24th episode. Would it be deja vu for Raven or
would Tommy "Dream" be a nightmare? Get it? Tommy
Dreamer? His DREAM? Words are Mean Gene's bitch.
After
the break, we saw a clip from the WCW Nitro of March 30th 1998, and
Chris Jericho's famous "List of 1004 holds" promo (ARMBAR!)
after he quickly beat Marty Jannetty. We only saw the first few to
the point they took the commercial break. Anyway, after this, we
moved back to the studio as Okerlund set up our next rivalry, namely
Jericho and Dean Malenko. They would engage in quite the feud
trading wins back and forth with each other over the Cruiserweight
Title.
However,
JJ Dlon decided that they had to settle things once and for all,
leading to a match where Malenko would get one last shot to reclaim
the CW Belt on the July 24th 1998 edition of Nitro. Would Malenko
reclaim the title, or would Jericho's extra four holds win the
day?
Our
next rivalry took us to WWE circa 1996, with The Undertaker and
Mankind, having already engaged in a series of battles, and having
already taken undertaker' manager Paul Bearer, Mankind stepped in the
ring with The Phenom once again on the episode that aired on December
9th in a No Holds Barred match.
Our
main event this week was so apparently great that one country
couldn't contain it as it was Sting vs. The Great Muta. Sting, as
the franchise of WCW had his fair share of enemies, some of whom were
his best friends. But one particular thorn in Sting's side was the
"Pearl of The Orient", The Great Muta, who came to the NWA
as, at the time, an undefeated superstar. Muta & Sting would
trade wins all the way until WCW's closing in 2001. So when WCW and
New Japan Pro Wrestling held their joint-promotional shows, there was
only one match that just had to happen as Sting & Muta squared
off.
This
was from the first WCW/NJPW Supershow on March 21st 1991, with it
airing in North America the next month from the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo,
Japan. This video, I'm afraid to say, has Japanese commentary on it,
because it was all I could find, oddly enough.
In
controversial fashion, Muta won the battle, but he was far from
winning the war. Over the years, they would trade wins and titles
and even occasionally team up against common enemies. But Sting and
Muta were still more foes than friends. Gene noted that we'd be
seeing more famous foes next week.
Epilogue Raven
spent the vast amount of the rest of his time in WWE on Heat. Like
all stipulations, it was eventually broken, although this only
happened once in a losing effort to Jeff Hardy in a Royal Rumble
qualifier, in his last televised match in WWE before being released
the next week.
During
that time on Heat, given it's non-priority status with management,
Raven took some creative control and ran an angle based loosely on
the seven deadly sins, with Raven playing a puppet-master character.
However, as management took notice of the angle, it was determined
not to be over and canned.
As
for Tommy, things would head on an upswing for him. Despite losing a
rematch on Heat to Raven the following month, he would soon win the
Hardcore Title from Bradshaw, defending it over the next month until
he lost in a match to RVD where the Hardcore Title and IC Titles were
unified Tommy would later drift in and out of being used on RAW,
making more and more appearances on Heat.
Despite
being Malenko's last shot, he would play a pivotal role in Jericho's
eventual title loss a couple of weeks after this match, as Malenko
was the special referee as Road Wild as Jericho faced Juventud
Guerrera, with Juvi winning. However, just 2 days later on the next
Nitro, Jericho defeated Stevie Ray for the WCW TV Title before
turning his attention to his non-feud with Goldberg.
As
for Malenko, a few months after the end of his feud with Jericho, he
took his place in a revitalised Four Horsemen with Benoit, Mongo and
Flair. Malenko & Benoit would feud with the West Texas Rednecks
principally, trading wins back and forth until Uncensored 99 when the
Horsemen won the WCW Tag Titles, belts they'd only hold for a couple
of weeks before losing tot he Filthy Animals.
As
obviously noted in the match, the following Sunday, Undertaker faced
The Executioner (Terry Gordy) at "In Your House: It's Time"
in an "Armageddon Rules" match, which was essentially a
Texas Deathmatch by another name. He then moved onto a short feud
with Vader, clashing at The Royal Rumble, both in a singles match and
later in the Rumble itself. After this, when Shawn Michaels vacated
the WWE Title, Taker faced Vader, Austin & Bret Hart in a Four
Corners match for the Title. Bret won, but lost it the next night on
RAW to Sid. Taker was then positioned as Sid's challenger at
Wrestlemania, obviously winning the match and title.
Mankind
re-entered Undertaker's life one last time at the IN Your House event
after Wrestlemania, where Undertaker retained and got his revenge on
Bearer, hitting him with a fireball (which in turn led to the angle
that saw the debut of Kane). As for Foley, his pre-WWE were exposed
by a series of interviews with Jim Ross utilising his home movies,
showing playing a character called Dude Love. When Shawn Michaels
was once again injured while a tag champion with Steve Austin, after
Austin rejected Mankind's help, in the next match Austin had, Foley
debuted the Dude Love character for real, helping Austin win. They
would hold the belts until Austin was injured by Owen Hart at
Summerslam.
At
the first Superbrawl event as featured in last week's show, Sting
teamed with Lex Luger facing The Steiner Brothers for the WCW Tag
Titles. The match ended when Nikita Koloff, who had been feuding
with Luger, came out and swung a chain. However, missing Luger, he
hit Sting, leading to a feud between the two over the summer before
beating "Stunning" Steve Austin for the US Title.
