Vader v Dustin Rhodes (WCW 16/11/94)
--24 hours ago I'd never watched this before; I've now seen it three times. There's only so much two guys can do in twelve minutes, but, off of the top of my head, this might be the best twelve minute match I've ever seen that isn't Volk Han vs. Kiyoshi Tamura. Amazing. Vader's usually cocky, but here he's reached a different level of dicky, slapping Dustin and blowing saliva n his face and yelling his head of at him with Harley Race giving him a maniacal cackle on the outside. Dustin losing his shit, Tony Schiavone loses his shit, I lose my shit. Dustin's a perfect house o' fire, and you see about a million people jump on their feet when he tackles Vader down like a freight train and starts slapping away himself. He goes the Sting route and knocks him over the top rope and takes his mask and runs over Race, and only loses his own control when Big Van gets a breather outside. A Vader control segment is the control segment you WANT, and he's pummelling the crap out of Rhodes in the turnbuckle corner with those ridiculous swings. A Dustin sympathy period is a sympathy period you want, and I'd say his hope spots are as good as about anything I've seen. There's great amount of stuff he does that would be considered almost nothing had this been the same sized opponent, but Vader's got the 200 lb weight upper hand, so when Rhodes pulls of a successful suplex or a power slam counter to a splash, you have everyone losing their mind. The DDT off of the second rope in particular was the damned greatest. Vader having to use two Vader splashes to get Dustin down was awesome, and Dustin kicked out at both which was a whole new level of him possibly being able to get a win here. Dustin had a sensational 1994, but I'd say he could have come off looking even stronger here than he did anytime else. He obviously got more control and stuff in the Buck series/WarGames, but this is fuckin' VADER, man. Two years prior (almost to the day, actually) you had Dustin scraping every bit of energy he had to even be a contender to win against Van, and here there's a lot of stuff that makes you think, "Dustin's fuckin' WINNING?!?!" Vader has to resort to throwing Dus over the rope when the ref takes his own period of pain because of Dustin overzealousness, and the idea of Vader resorting to being desperate enough to do that is awesome. And those clotheslines, man. He WIIIPPES him. Finish might be unspectacular, but, again, Dustin was made to look really strong. Once Vader's in deep shit Race gets in the ring and Dustin goes to whoop him only for Vader to cream the whole lot of them, then he lays out Rhodes with this face plant thing. This really was excellent, and I can only think how tremendous it would have been had they feuded throughout '95. I honestly cannot fathom a promoter watching this and thinking it wasn't a money feud. The crowd was molten, the match was terrific, and the performances were immense. Dustin looked like a better opponent for Vader than Sting was. Apart from Hart/Hart at WrestleMania and Blue Panther/El Mariachi, this is probably as good a match as I've seen from a non-Japanese promotion in 1994. Again, amazing.
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