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Post by Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED! on Aug 24, 2021 12:23:32 GMT -5
Watching over ROH's early days I can safely say this may have been one of the weirdest stables I've ever seen. Their gimmick was that they were a bunch of doped up rich kids who were more interested in partying, doing drugs, and doing cool looking moves in the ring than they were in actually learning how to wrestle. Their matches were the stereotypical indy spotfest, tons of dives, cool looking but dangerous moves and almost no selling to speak of. ROH justified this in their canon as them being so doped up they didn't even register how much damage they were taking. The group had 23 (including Joey Mercury, a young Jay Lethal and Abyss of all people) members during their 3 years existence. In kayfabe they were the young punks that everybody hated because they didn't respect the business.
Highlights include:
-Spiking Joey Mercury's drink, getting him addicted to drugs and forcing him to join the group to fuel his addiction. -Pissing off Low Ki enough that he dropped his quest for the world title for long enough to beat the mess out of one of them. -An inexplicable 10-on-7 handicap scramble match which main evented the 1st Anniversary show for some stupid reason, went 33:47, featured a heel turn by Mikey Whipwreck halfway through which went nowhere, featured absolutely no selling from anybody and ended in a BURNING HAMMER OFF THE TOP ROPE! -A tag title win which lasted about a month.
The absolute capper of the batshit insanity that was Special K was their feud with the Carnage Crew. Carnage Crew was in a nutshell a group of blue collar, hardcore wrestlers. They were working 9 to 5 jobs and wrestling on the weekend in essence they were the opposite of Special K. The feud began with Special K scoring a cheap win over Carnage Crew in a gauntlet match and things kept escalating from there. This included scramble matches, a country whipping match, Special K hiring Abyss to take care of them, but the absolute peak of the insanity came when Loc's 13 year old daughter got involved.
It came out at one of the shows that Loc's daughter got involved in the rave scene and had been partying with Special K, and that one of them had apparently given her ecstasy, This led to a segment (which closed the home release of their Second anniversary show no less), where the Carnage Crew were preparing to interrogate a Special K member with a blowtorch to find out where Loc's daughter is.
The finale was a scramble cage match which was by far the wildest spotfest you will ever see featuring cameos from Dusty Rhodes helping the Carnage Crew and Ox Barker of all people helping Special K. The match concluded with a Spike Pildriver from the top of the cage through two tables allowing the Carnage Crew to win.
The group would eventually disband in 2005, but it was probably the wildest ride in all of wrestling. I have no idea where they came up with this, I've never seen anything else like it, and frankly I don't think I ever want to.
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Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Aug 24, 2021 15:20:42 GMT -5
Special K is one of the weirdest damn gimmicks, maybe especially because there were so many of them. I have to wonder if it was just an ongoing try-out until they could find the few in there that ROH actually thought were worth a damn (only Jay Lethal stood the test of time, but Azrieal, Cheech and Cloudy, and IIRC Deranged and Dixie all had short runs where they were attempted as serious wrestlers).
It actually feels like a semi-spiteful insult to a swath of wrestlers that ROH brought in. Like, "Oh, with the way you wrestle, we need to package you with Special K just to warn the audience what they're in for."
I also wonder if ROH's DVD mail-order format saved the promotion from getting more vitriol for them. I know that I always skipped every Special K (and Carnage Crew, for that matter) match, and I can't imagine I was the only one. They'd probably be more infamous and badly-remembered if ROH had been putting on this act on a TV show every week with no way to skip except changing the channel.
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mcmahonfan85
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Post by mcmahonfan85 on Aug 24, 2021 15:26:45 GMT -5
they came up with it as a cover for their botching. whenever they screwed something up, it wasn't because they're young and inexperienced, or just flat out sloppy wrestlers, it was because "they're high". some of them weren't too bad. Lethal (who hated being in the group) became Lethal, i always like Azrieal, and Up in Smoke did some good stuff in CHIKARA.
if you want to see a bad reaction to Special K, track down PWG's "The Musical". Deranged and Lit (dubbed "Oven Mitts #1 & #2" because of their shinny puffy pants), accompanied by Teddy Hart, took on Hardkore Kidd in a handicap match, and Excalibur and Disco Machine just spend the entire match burying the shit out of them on commentary. i think its best summed up when Deranged leapt off of Lit's back and went for a spinning kick but really ended up giving Kid a crossbody to the knee and Excalibur blurted out "What the f*** was that?!", then when Deranged tried to redo it he said "Oh please, do it one more time! The fans didn't see it quite right the first time." then of course there was their sign off for the match, which lets you know you just watched something really special:
Disco Machine - "And thankfully it's over! Thank you for ruining our show!" Excalibur - "Oven Mitts Numbers One and Two, please, never make a return to PWG again!"
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mcmahonfan85
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Post by mcmahonfan85 on Aug 24, 2021 16:02:59 GMT -5
Special K is one of the weirdest damn gimmicks, maybe especially because there were so many of them. I have to wonder if it was just an ongoing try-out until they could find the few in there that ROH actually thought were worth a damn (only Jay Lethal stood the test of time, but Azrieal, Cheech and Cloudy, and IIRC Deranged and Dixie all had short runs where they were attempted as serious wrestlers). the core group was Izzy, Dixie, Deranged and Azrieal. Lethal left midway through 2005 and Cheech didn't become a regular really until the split when the majority of the group became Lacey's Angels. an important thing to remember of Special K is when they came to prominence, ROH was just starting out and didn't have a lot of money. hell the bulk of the roster could be divided into three groups: Texas Wrestling Academy students, Homicide's students, and Mikey Whipwreck's students. other than Jody Fleish coming over from the UK and Joey Matthews who started working ECW regularly during its last few months, the Special K guys were all local wrestlers that worked cheap one other thing to remember is that watching wrestling live (in an intimate arena) is a hell of a lot different than watching on tv, and while Special K and the old Scramble Tag matches got shit on a lot online, the live fans were always super into them
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Post by Hypnosis on Aug 24, 2021 21:49:47 GMT -5
That gimmick would have worked better if they got "high" from the cereal.
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Post by Georgina's Fancy Water on Aug 24, 2021 22:08:39 GMT -5
I love that Abyss was in this f***ing stable. Like who else???
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2021 13:29:47 GMT -5
Special K is one of the weirdest damn gimmicks, maybe especially because there were so many of them. I have to wonder if it was just an ongoing try-out until they could find the few in there that ROH actually thought were worth a damn (only Jay Lethal stood the test of time, but Azrieal, Cheech and Cloudy, and IIRC Deranged and Dixie all had short runs where they were attempted as serious wrestlers). It actually feels like a semi-spiteful insult to a swath of wrestlers that ROH brought in. Like, "Oh, with the way you wrestle, we need to package you with Special K just to warn the audience what they're in for." I also wonder if ROH's DVD mail-order format saved the promotion from getting more vitriol for them. I know that I always skipped every Special K (and Carnage Crew, for that matter) match, and I can't imagine I was the only one. They'd probably be more infamous and badly-remembered if ROH had been putting on this act on a TV show every week with no way to skip except changing the channel. The announcers would straight up say that Special K was just whoever was hanging out partying that weekend.
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Post by Psicofreak667 on Aug 25, 2021 16:17:16 GMT -5
They actually made a whole angle out of how Hydro (Jay Lethal) was obviously better than the rest of Special K, which lead to Samoa Joe taking him under his wing and turning him into a real wrestler.
And yeah there was an angle where Special K broke up and Deranged and Dixie started trying to be more serious, but I don't believe it went anywhere. Looking them up on cagematch it seems that Izzy Dixie and Deranged all basically retired after their Special K run, while Azriel's been a semi-regular in CZW and other smaller promotions.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2021 17:22:53 GMT -5
I love them so much. Just perfect train wrecks in the middle of the show. They understood their role and they did it well.
Slim J is still around! And almost the exact same
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Post by Celexa Bliss 54 on Aug 25, 2021 17:52:10 GMT -5
I've heard of them, but not really being able to follow ROH back in 2002, I never really knew much about them. In fact, the first time I truly read about them was the Joey Matthews thing and... yeesh. That... that's something that happened.
Gotta ask, did they ever do an angle with the Second City Saints? Because you'd think that would write itself lol
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Post by mcmahonfan85 on Aug 25, 2021 18:19:32 GMT -5
Gotta ask, did they ever do an angle with the Second City Saints? Because you'd think that would write itself lol no. closest thing was Punk saying he was better than them before a scramble tag
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Post by DSR on Aug 25, 2021 18:54:06 GMT -5
Gotta ask, did they ever do an angle with the Second City Saints? Because you'd think that would write itself lol no. closest thing was Punk saying he was better than them before a scramble tag His match against "Hydro" was also designed to be a big break-out moment for Jay Lethal.
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Post by mcmahonfan85 on Aug 25, 2021 19:02:43 GMT -5
And yeah there was an angle where Special K broke up and Deranged and Dixie started trying to be more serious, but I don't believe it went anywhere. Looking them up on cagematch it seems that Izzy Dixie and Deranged all basically retired after their Special K run, while Azriel's been a semi-regular in CZW and other smaller promotions. it was Azrieal and Dixie, not Deranged. Dixie left shortly after he and Azrieal lost a "Losing team must disband" match. Izzy, Deranged, Cheech and Cloudy were the original Lacey's Angels and hung around until the Kobashi shows, when Lacey kicked them to the curb and replaced them with BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs. Azrieal was a lower-end midcard wrestler and got to have matches with a lot of big names before leaving in early 2006
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Post by Andee9001 on Aug 25, 2021 19:20:57 GMT -5
Meh they were alright but they were no bowl of Special K.
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Post by chronocross on Aug 25, 2021 19:30:40 GMT -5
no. closest thing was Punk saying he was better than them before a scramble tag His match against "Hydro" was also designed to be a big break-out moment for Jay Lethal. I also remember Alex Shelley and GenNext were trying to recruit him around that time. The group was fun in short spurts, got to see them wrestle live at a few of the ROH shows in 04 and 05.
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Post by Midnight Express on Aug 25, 2021 19:54:05 GMT -5
I enjoyed Special K. They were flippy, no selling, spot machines, but Jay Lethal came out of them.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Aug 25, 2021 20:12:14 GMT -5
Always thought Cheech and Cloudy deserved better. I recently rewatched the King of Trios where they teamed with MC KZ, and they were pretty damn tight.
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Post by Starshine on Aug 25, 2021 20:29:40 GMT -5
A rare example of a pro wrestling stable that was splintered via a few members saying: "no really guys, I'd just like to wrestle for a change."
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Post by Some Baritone guy IS REDEEMED! on Aug 25, 2021 21:13:23 GMT -5
A rare example of a pro wrestling stable that was splintered via a few members saying: "no really guys, I'd just like to wrestle for a change." Amazingly not the only time. There was a heel stable in Dragon Gate (I want to say New Hazard, but I could be wrong) which broke up because certain members wanted to win their matches by focusing on their skills and team work, while the other half wanted to continue to group's brand by cheating excessively.
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Post by Psicofreak667 on Aug 26, 2021 1:49:00 GMT -5
That was actually pretty common in Dragon Gate and Toryumon Japan before that. The first time it was done was with the Italian Connection - Milano Collection AT and YOSSINO both wanted to turn the stable face, whereas brother YASSINI, Condotti Shuji, Berlinetta Boxer and Bakery Yagi wanted to keep it heel. It ended with the heel contingent abandoning the stable and joining up with Masaaki Mochizuki to form a stable called Hagure Gundam.
And yeah, it was New Hazard. I don't remember who all was in the heel contingent, but Susumu Yokosuka, K-Ness and Genki Horiguchi wanted to take the stable in a face direction and when they couldn't convince anyone else to join them, bailed on it.
I swear it happened a third time with the stable that Akira Tozawa and BxB Hulk were the co-leaders of, when Hulk got sick of the constant cheating, but I'm drawing a complete blank on what that stable was called.
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