Rick Fuller vs. Doc Dean WCW Saturday Night 07-25-1998
I don't come from a place chockful of local celebrities.
There's not even a handful, let alone a chockful. I grew up in a town called Carver Massachusetts, a town best known for not a whole hell of a lot. It's a cranberry bog town that only has like four Dunkin Donuts which means it probably has the least Dunkin per square inch in the entire state. There's one road the runs the entire length of the town that has all the stuff. The rest is bogs and neighborhoods for the most part. My town is so not known for a whole hell of a lot that we don't even have a " Famous People from This Town" spot on Wikipedia. We just have one throwaway line of the only person famous that came from Carver. You saw the title of this match, so I assumed you guessed the correct answer which is of course
Mike Bennett
No, this isn't an error...Mike Bennett is the only famous person to come from my hometown. It seems very much like my hometown to do something like this to me. There's a wrestler from my town, I have a blog about wrestling. Surely I can write about a match he had.
Wrong.
Mike Bennett doesn't have squash matches I can find. I know they exist, I remember he had at least some ROH on HDNet matches but I can't find them. So let's try to salvage this and pivot. Another thing about living in Carver was the lack of nightlife. I'm not talking about going clubbing or anything, I'm talking about going to a bar. Carver has bars, but they are the towniest of the townies. They were great to go to if you wanted to see your friend's dad get plastered with someone who bullied you in high school. Nope, you had to go somewhere else...you had to go to the next town over. Your best best was Plymouth ,but sometimes it made more sense to go to Middleboro
Maybe you'd run into Rick Fuller
Before Mike Bennet, Rick Fuller was the local wrestling celebrity here. From Middleboro High School, Rick was an easy guy to spot whenever he was in town. For starters he was huge, he had wild hair, and people knew who he was. I know so many people with weird Rick Fuller encounters. Cousins who went to school with him, friends who knew his daughter, restaurant workers who served him food, it's weird. It's not like he was the big man on campus with an ego or anything, but people from the area just knew who he was. One of my earliest independent wrestling memories was actually at his alma matter, Middleboro High School. Aside from seeing a barbed wire match at 10 years old I shouldn't have seen, the biggest memory was Rick. I'm telling you man the place was packed. There was easily over a thousand people there and when Rick came out, you would have thought Austin showed up. Big fitness buffs in the town. Denise Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass into shape. It was special man. I mean didn't we all have that fantasy? Not only to live out a dream, but to come back to where you're from to Fargo strut a little and show off your success. Let's see you sell out Middleboro High School local bully at the bar. EAT SHIT DEREK. After WCW ,Rick stuck around the independent scene and was on probably every non-super indie show I went to throughout the 2000s. He's one of my boys man, someone I associate only with fond memories. I know to a lot of people, Rick Fuller is just a footnote in the Monday Night War but to me, Rick Fuller is part of so many cool wrestling nights.
And it's a cool Georgia night in July 1998 as we are here for an edition of WCW Saturday Night that will see Rick Fuller taking on Doc Dean. I'm the king of transitions baby. Doc Dean is out first and quite frankly I only know him from playing EWR. I think he was one of those guys you could sign cheap and you could get good matches out of him to build up the undercard. Doc is a British wrestler who came to America in the late 90s and became an enhancement guy for WCW. You can tell he's a real wrestler, no offense to other wimpies, because of his look. For starters, he's lathered in baby oil and actual gear. Wimpies don't oil they're bodies, only wrestlers. Also, he's wearing tassels which as a scientific fact makes him a good worker. He does this weird thing where he jumps and clicks his heels on the way to the ring. I'm assuming he knows he's about to get killed and is trying a Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz-esque escape. Hoping he gets caught in a tornado real quick and forced to murder a witch that only turned bad because James Franco was mean to her. That's right, Oz and Great and Powerful lore is canon now.
Rick Fuller out next in the look I think he always had. Black pleather singlet, burly beard, crazy hair. . He's like Sideshow Bob on HGH. God Rick is a big boy. They starts off with a kick from Rick and a big chop. Sidebar, I've gone to tons of wrestling shows and I've never saw anyone chop harder then Rick Fuller. I saw a show at a high school in Plymouth Mass and I swear to god I saw Rick Fuller chop a guy so hard blood came off . There's no way that's true, but I'll believe it to my last breath. Which will probably be caused by a Rick Fuller chop. Doc escapes Rick's clutches and tries to Irish Whip Rick, but Rick counters with a big Spinebuster. More hard chops from Rick Fuller followed by a big boot. He drives Dean into the buckles which causes Doc Dean to do these weird seizure sells. Can CTE set in that quickly? Rick starts working the arm and more chops. These ones aren't as loud though, or they're so loud we can't hear them but dogs can. Doc Dean avoids a splash and gets some offense in with punches in the corner, but Rick pushes off and hits a spinning kick to Doc's face. Rick's version isn't the best, but as a whole I love that move and wish I saw more big guys do it. Rick sends Doc to the outside. More chops from Rick who is the American Kensuke Sasaki as far as I'm concerned. On cue Rick calls over a cameraman so he can get a closeup on him chopping the shit out of Doc again. I appreciate the self-awareness for Rick to do what he knows he does well. He tells the cameraman he has hands of stone, though technically it's just hand of stone. Fuller gets Dean inside the ring and sets him in the tree of woe before stomping away and choking him from the outside. He whips Dean into the ropes, but Dean has one last gasp of offense as he tries a sunset flip that Fuller escapes BY CHOPPING. Dean tries a cross body block, but Fuller catches him and hits a nasty sitout Tombstone piledriver for the win
That wasn't half bad. I'm the kind of jackass who loves when wrestlers get hit for real so obviously I love me a good chop and Rick Fuller has a hell of a chop. He's the best guy named Rick who does chops, and yes I'm including Ric. Bit slow in parts, but did enough to keep my interest. I think Rick's ceiling in WCW was going to be stuff like this, but I thought stuff like this was fun. You did the South Shore proud Rick as the best wimpy squash match wrestler south of Boston but north of Providence.
Until Mike Bennet has a match where he German suplexes a wimpy onto his dome
TLDR Review
I was born in a small town. Doc Dean got killed by a guy from that small town. I never drank in Middleboro, it just made sense for the bit
If you're interested in more condensed version of my thoughts, You can check out my Twitter where I talk about wrestling or stress out during Boston Celtics games. Hell, I'll even take suggestions for matches you want to see reviewed. You can also check out my Youtube where I make weird videos where I put on wigs in front of a camera to mask my true identity.