La Parka v. Saturn (Thunder 3/19/98)
Parka makes a ‘head into chair whilst holding the chair’ spot not look contrived and stupid, so that alone makes this good. It’s a shame the camera didn’t catch Parka taking a slide out of the ring properly, because that looked to be really cool. I’ve never given a crap about Saturn’s work, but he doesn’t look bad at all, he had a really nice spot where he suplex/superplexed Parka whilst on the second rope in the middle of the ring (not near the turnbuckles). If anything it makes me actually hopeful that the Goldberg matches around this time won’t be dragged down by him. Parka trying to work lucha mat-pin stuff with him was probably a bad idea, though.
La Parka v. Meng (Nitro 3/27/00)
So this had an odd story attached to it, an average looking hold for the finish and it went about two minutes. And I LOVE IT. There are just some match ups in wrestling that you don’t realise are dream matches for you until you see the two names on paper together. Parka and Meng fit that bill perfectly and you gotta love WCW for the ‘what if’ match ups being answered. You gotta kinda hate them because the matches never get to really reach their potential with all the restrictions, but, nevertheless, if not for WCW I wouldn’t have seen this. Parka has a gimmick sort of thing where some dubbed voice talks over the microphone for him, and this voice starts talking about his homies and shit, and Parka is playing along. Then the voice calls Meng Angela Davis (this was during Meng’s Huge Fucking Afro period), and Parka drops the mike and tries to tell the voice to shut up. Meng shoves palm after palm in his face and sells a chairshot perfectly for a thick-headed Islander. He stumble to the ground, but Parka shows the chair with a dent in it and on second attempt for a swing, Meng grabs a death grip (which looks kind of bad because Parka’s jacket is in the way) to win it.
La Parka v. Adrian Byrd (Saturday Night, late 1999 or early 2000)
Not sure I’ve ever heard of Byrd before. That’s one of the main things I love about watching random shit – finding stuff that’s totally foreign to me. Byrd kind of looked to me like Carlton from Fresh Price of Bel-Air, if he got really buff and stole Ezekiel Jackson’s head. He was OK ‘mechanically’, but ‘mechanics’ was basically all he was doing. You know when you watching Tough Enough or some sort of wrestling school thing and guys are practicing clotheslines and arm drags? Yeah, kind of looked like he was doing that. Parka is a guy who, no matter how bad a match is, will always be entertaining, and he kept things pretty interesting with his dancing. Taking off the glove so a palm would hurt more was a cool touch, and maaaan the bump on a dropkick where he slid down the apron looks pretty hurtful. It’s probably one of those things that looks more hurtful than it is, but that’s a huge plus in wrestling. You know what isn’t a huge plus in wrestling? WCW announcing. Yeah, keep talking about that Benoit v. Jarrett match that never even happened.
La Parka v. Dean Malenko (Saturday Night 12/27/97)
Tony Schiavone: “what I want to talk about here, is the arrogance of the nWo”. Of course it is. This was really fun, and between this, the Norman Smiley, Ohtani, Disco Inferno and Liger matches, I’ve been underestimating Malenko for a while. I mean I kinda have no time for a bunch of his lengthy matches and I would rather eat my own eyeballs on a skewer than ever watch the Hog Wild match with Benoit again, but he works so well in these short TV matches (the Disco match was even on PPV). He and Parka mess around on the mat and it’s surprisingly quick and spry. Parka gets a camel clutch and fishhooks Malenko’s cheek, which is badass. Wait…. Tony actually APOLOGISED for off-topic commentary. I’mma go feed the flying pigs in my backyard. For a short match this had a really neat finish run, too.
La Parka/Silver King v. Kendall Windham/Curly Bill (Saturday Night 10/2/99)
Curly Bill is Virgil/Vincent’s West Texas ******* name. I have nothing to say about the match. I could mention what happened, but it’d sound like simple play by play ‘reviewing’ and I don’t do that stuff. Silver King is FIP and eventually tags Parka in. The wrestling wasn’t terribly impressive, but for a seven minute match I have no real complaints. OK, well, one complaint – I’m pretty sure Virgil Irish whipping King into his own corner was the reason for the ‘hot’ tag. Why would you do that?
La Parka v. Spyder (Saturday Night 7/17/99)
After a Google search I still know almost nothing about Spyder, but Tenay says that this is his debut. Turns out he was the lWo bodyguard who is now wrestling, and he seems competent. He takes a fine bump off of offense (and a cool one from a missed stinger splash…or whatever you might call it), but he's the kind of guy to bodyslam someone and then just walk around aimlessly as to say ‘yeah I bodyslammed someone’ or something. Parka’s selling makes this fun, and the end-part of the match where he trips Spyder who’s on the top rope to send him crashing to the floor was awesome as hell.
La Parka/Psicosis v. Mortis/Wrath (Nitro 7/22/97)
Are you fucking *kidding* me? If there was EVER a WCW dream match. Parka takes a fucking corker of a bump off of a Wrath elbow (spins sideways almost 360), and Psicosis hits amazing dives no matter what. Parka then corkscrews to take Wrath out. Psicosis totally botches something from the top rope and crutches himself before going to the outside. Wrath and Mortis hit a powebomb/neckbreaker combo, and instead of breaking the pin, Parka goes outside to get a wooden chair for the post-match. He blasts Kanyon with it and struts with the two wooden pieces left, then takes a fucking SPLAT of an outside bump from a Wrath boot. This is wrestling.