Strange Matches

[Cannibal Man]

Wish I could find the graphic from when they originally announced it because it was perfect but this Italy vs Antarctica match from Mad Man Pondo's IWA EC -

Quote

Loser Leaves Earth Match

Tracy Smothers defeats Oderus Urungus by DQ (5:08)

 

Edited July 12, 2025 by Cannibal Man

[wandshogun09]

The mention of Tracy Smothers reminds me that he actually wrestled Michael Hayes on WWF TV in July 1999.

Side note, what was this ‘New York’ show?  I don’t have any recollection of that. I always assumed this match was on Sunday Night Heat or something. 

[Merzbow]

Frenchman Flesh Gordon (lol) vs the future Kizarny in the WWF?! I know it's a dark match but how the hell did this ever come about?

EDIT: there's more than one Flesh Gordon in wrestling??

 

Edited July 12, 2025 by Merzbow

[The Dart]

7 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

The mention of Tracy Smothers reminds me that he actually wrestled Michael Hayes on WWF TV in July 1999.

Side note, what was this ‘New York’ show?  I don’t have any recollection of that. I always assumed this match was on Sunday Night Heat or something. 

It was just a version of Shotgun Saturday Night that was only shown in New York - same show, but with different commentary.

If you think WWF New York was weird - check out WWF 11 Alive

 

Edited July 12, 2025 by The Dart

[Snitsky's back acne]

15 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Frenchman Flesh Gordon (lol) vs the future Kizarny in the WWF?! I know it's a dark match but how the hell did this ever come about?

EDIT: there's more than one Flesh Gordon in wrestling??

 

Yeah it's most definitely not the French Flesh Gordon as everyone seemed to be saying about this. Not that he was much better, in fairness. 

[Merzbow]

To be fair they are both bald white dudes with dodgy facial hair, an easy mistake.

[Surf Digby]

On 7/12/2025 at 9:24 AM, Snitsky's back acne said:

Even stranger - the future Jushin Thunder Liger also wrestled on the show. 

That's not that strange really. "Flying Fuji" had plenty of matches for WOS. Yes, it's interesting who he turned it to be, but at the time he was essentially just one of the rosta.

[Snitsky's back acne]

15 hours ago, Surf Digby said:

That's not that strange really. "Flying Fuji" had plenty of matches for WOS. Yes, it's interesting who he turned it to be, but at the time he was essentially just one of the rosta.

I just mean that the idea of Jushin Liger wrestling at Stringfellows seems strange to me.

[Version1.0]

Osprey vs Vader - obviously

Booker T taking 10-minutes to defeat Stevie Richards on PPV at Insurrexion 2002 for the Hardcore Title is still bizarre. I love Stevie, but this was the longest PPV match of his career.

 

Edited July 14, 2025 by Version1.0

[air_raid]

On 7/12/2025 at 5:21 PM, Cannibal Man said:

Loser Leaves Earth Match

If we’re getting into ones that qualify on stip, my favourite was the “loser banned from Tesco” match. Fairly sure it involved Martin Kirby and happened somewhere in Yorkshire. It’s only half a memory but it still makes me laugh.

[Chico Torres]

I think the true spirit of this thread can be found in the WCW syndicated shows of the mid 90s onwards (Worldwide, Pro etc) when they stopped having any relevance or connection to the main shows and randomly matched up a lower tier roster of American, Mexican, Japanese and British wrestlers in 5 minute matches. So you may get Hacksaw Jim Duggar vs Super Calo, The Armstrongs vs El Dandy and Silver King, Doc Dean vs Yuji Nagata, Lash Leroux vs Cima etc

Here’s one where Masa Chono faces Dave Sullivan in front of theme park tourists while threatening Dave (Evad’s) pet rabbit

 

[Snitsky's back acne]

2 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

I think the true spirit of this thread can be found in the WCW syndicated shows of the mid 90s onwards (Worldwide, Pro etc) when they stopped having any relevance or connection to the main shows and randomly matched up a lower tier roster of American, Mexican, Japanese and British wrestlers in 5 minute matches. So you may get Hacksaw Jim Duggar vs Super Calo, The Armstrongs vs El Dandy and Silver King, Doc Dean vs Yuji Nagata, Lash Leroux vs Cima etc

Here’s one where Masa Chono faces Dave Sullivan in front of theme park tourists while threatening Dave (Evad’s) pet rabbit

 

I still get a kick out of this one.
 

 

[BomberPat]

CHIKARA gave us some extraordinary ones over the years - some even weirder in retrospect.

• the King Of Trios 2009 quarter-final of Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli & Dave Taylor vs. Johnny Saint, Mike Quackenbush & Jorge Rivera
• 123 Kid & Marty Jannetty vs. The Heart Throbs, in 2012, which led to a Two Out Of Three Falls title match the following month between Kid & Jannetty and The Young Bucks
• In 2012's King Of Trios, there was an ECW team of Tommy Dreamer, Jerry Lynn and Too Cold Scorpio against a WWF team of 123 Kid, Aldo Montoya & Tatanka, and Mike Bennett & The Young Bucks faced Meng, Barbarian and Warlord.
• Eddie Kingston vs. Awesome Kong

Not so much strange as interesting:

• Adam Cole vs. Kyle O'Reilly in what Cagematch says was their second match together, in 2010. They've been joined at the hip for fifteen years!

 

And some from Joey Janela's Spring Break over the years:

• Nick Gage vs. Shinjiro Otani
• TAKA Michinoku vs. Orange Cassidy
• Joey Janela vs. Marty Jannetty
• LAX vs. The Rock N Roll Express
• LA Park vs. Masato Tanaka

[Carbomb]

The one that always intrigued me was the Team WWF that had Demolition in it. Think I torrented it and never got round to watching. Should dig that up.

[BomberPat]

5 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

The one that always intrigued me was the Team WWF that had Demolition in it. Think I torrented it and never got round to watching. Should dig that up.

that's a good laugh, it was Demolition and One Man Gang against Larry Sweeney's group, some daft comedy stuff on there.

Demolition popped up again in a tag gauntlet there in 2012; Devastation Corporation (CHIKARA's throwback Road Warriors style tag team) are dominating against a bunch of mostly jobber teams, but then get beaten by the Powers Of Pain, who are beaten by Demolition, and then Demolition are beaten by 123 Kid and Jannetty. It was great fun. 

Someone at CHIKARA told me around that time that Demolition would charge by the bump; the more you wanted them to do, the more you paid them.