Short lived but, damn, it was good.

[Snitsky's back acne]

Some things in wrestling, and in life, are far too short but, dammit, they are pretty bloody good"

I figured "Why not see if we can get a thread out of this?", so.... what things in wrestling were fairly brief but, fuck, they were really damn good.

I'll start - the West Texas Rednecks. It shouldn't have worked. It's a group that had Kendall fucking Windham in it, for fucks sake, but dammit they were bloody awesome!
Two great music videos. Catchy as fuck. Plus, you could tell all of them, particularly Curt Hennig, were having an absolute blast.

Should have done much more with them than they did but it was fun while it lasted.
 

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

I honestly couldn’t believe that when I went into Smyths at Christmas time there was a Curt Hennig figure in full West Texas Rednecks get up, it was something I didn’t expect to see.

My pick would be Shotgun Saturday Night, those first few episodes were really something different and I can remember getting the first few episodes off tape trader, Glenn Radford and loving the overall look and the feel of the show, it was so far removed from WWF TV at the time. 

Looking back now some things have not aged well (and probably didn’t work at the time either, truth be told) such as the Sunny and Elmo sex tape and the mini wrestler skits.

Then came along Terry Funk and USA Network took exception to it all

[HarmonicGenerator]

Two seconds long, never led to anything, still the best thing Ethan Page has ever done.

Edited April 3, 2025 by HarmonicGenerator

[Chili]

Hookhausen. You'd probably hear it as a pitch and turn it down because it doesn't in your head seem to work, but they put it on TV and it became one of AEW's most charming mid-card comedy angles. Hook, this cool as fuck, serious young athlete, is so cool he draws the ire of some weirdo space gremlin who is angry that he can't 'curse' Hook because he's too cool to be cursed. Eventually it snowballs into a bizarre odd-couple angle that gets ended far too soon afterwards. But what a delightfully quirky two months that story was. The angle where Danhausen challenges Hook to a massive pop and then instantly realises he's made an incredibly stupid decision is brilliant, as was Hook shoving him over and Danhausen presenting a gift wrapped bag of crisps and the crowd playing along and genuinely giving Hook shit for being a meany. Class. Love(d) that Danhausen.

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by Chili

[Version1.0]

Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit as the inaugural WWE Tag Team Champion on SmackDown in 2002.

 

Won titles in a banger against Rey Mysterio and Edge at No Mercy (over 20-minutes).

Defended in a banger against Los Guerreros at Rebellion (over 20-minutes)

Lost titles in a 2 out of 3 falls banger to Rey Mysterio and Edge on SmackDown (24-minutes)

Los Guerreros defeated Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio & Edge at Survivor Series (19-minutes)

9 days later Los Guerreros retained against Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit on SmackDown (16-minutes)

That was the end.

Total time: 7 weeks

 

 

[Snitsky's back acne]

13 hours ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

 

My pick would be Shotgun Saturday Night, those first few episodes were really something different and I can remember getting the first few episodes off tape trader, Glenn Radford and loving the overall look and the feel of the show, it was so far removed from WWF TV at the time.

Agreed. It was always doomed as the costs likely outweighed the return but, come on, Terry Funk getting thrown in a water butt in a Texas nightclub, HHH and Undertaker having a match at a train station with Hunter getting tombstoned on the escalator - brilliant fun.

I'm sure this has been said before but The Hollywood Blondes. Obviously Austin was always destined for bigger things but, dammit, they were fucking great as a team and could have been one of the all time greats if they had stayed together for a few years 

Let's not forget Pillman either - the Loose Cannon. A thing of absolute beauty. One day he is stabbing a 'fan' with a fork and threatening to piss in the middle of the ring in ECW, the next he is ringside at Nitro holding signs up and getting thrown out by security. I know he went on to WWF but I consider the TRUE Loose Cannon run to be from late 95 up until his last appearance in the ECW Arena in June 96 where he was in a wheelchair, had a "Censor This' T-Shirt on with the middle finger proudly displayed front and centre (14/15 year old me DESPERATELY wanted that t-shirt) and attacked Mikey Whipwreck with a crutch. Pure genius and something we will never see again. 

[Bus Surfer]

Ronda Rousey's in ring career.

It peaked at the debut in the tag with Kurt against HHH and Stephanie at Mania 34, and whilst it didn't truely go to shit right away, it was diminishing returns from that point.

That Mania tag to me, is legitimately one of those perfect but basic matches where everything just works and the correct story is told.  Rehearsed endlessly no doubt, but it's just great. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

I always remember Y2AJ having real potential as a partnership and it lasted 2 or 3 weeks, as they went straight into a Mania feud if memory serves.

They released their first t-shirt the night they split up, which is very funny.

[Supremo]

There’ll never be a greater one-night run than what Nakamura had before hitting the beach for a decade. Perfect.

[RedTwoster]

Mr Brodie Lee in AEW. He only had 14 matches for the promotion, spanning seven months but he had such an impact in that time. He reinvented himself as a character, demonstrated great promo skills, comic timing and also the ability to be absolutely terrifying. 

It was a very memorable and highly entertaining run, and he’s still probably the best big man wrestler AEW has ever had. 

[The Reverend]

2 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I'm sure this has been said before but The Hollywood Blondes. Obviously Austin was always destined for bigger things but, dammit, they were fucking great as a team and could have been one of the all time greats if they had stayed together for a few years 

I always think they were together longer than they were, but you're right they could've been huge. Had they been in the era of the late 80's/early 90's when you had the Steiners, Road Warriors, The Harts, The Rockers, Demolition etc. then they would've been having some great matches in either WCW or WWF. 

[Snitsky's back acne]

5 minutes ago, The Reverend said:

I always think they were together longer than they were, but you're right they could've been huge. Had they been in the era of the late 80's/early 90's when you had the Steiners, Road Warriors, The Harts, The Rockers, Demolition etc. then they would've been having some great matches in either WCW or WWF. 

It's crazy that, looking at results from that time, some of the best (on paper) tag matches of the year - the Blondes v Douglas and Steamboat - were held in armouries and high school gyms in front of (in some cases) 100 people. 

[The Reverend]

I'm not sure if it classes as brief, although it was less than a year they were so heavily featured, but for me the Dangerous Alliance in WCW. I've always thought it was longer than roughly 11 months. With the talent they had, and the multiple opportunities there was enough mileage for another 12 months at least I reckon.  

There's a few others of which perhaps some are only my own guilty pleasures. Bam Bam Bigelow in the WWF in 87/88 - I suppose it was a crowded marketplace back then, but he could've been moved away from the big man vs big man matches he was having against the One Man Gang and had he turned heel gone up against Steamboat, Savage or even Jake Roberts. 

He didn't really fit in at the time, had it been 97/98 then it may have worked perfectly, but I always liked Dan Spivey's Waylon Mercy character. The promos were good, and he looked and wrestled with a real vicious manner. Just wrong time, wrong place.  

[gmoney]

Bam Bam's late 80s WWF runs very strange in retrospect. I assume the plan was to turn him on Hogan at some point, but it's very bizarre that at that time Vince would have looked at  a 350 pound guy with a bald tattooed head and thought "babyface". 

[HarmonicGenerator]

10 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

It's crazy that, looking at results from that time, some of the best (on paper) tag matches of the year - the Blondes v Douglas and Steamboat - were held in armouries and high school gyms in front of (in some cases) 100 people. 

On a similar tag team note, that second 'golden age' of WWF tag team wrestling with E&C, the Hardys and the Dudleys was less than two years start to finish. No Mercy 99 you get the first Ladder Match, and by No Mercy 01 Edge and Christian are fighting each other, the Hardys are ready to split apart and the Dudleys were relying on Stacy Keibler to keep relevant.