Too Cold Scorpio

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Loss]

Is this 2 Cold Scorpio or Scorpio Jr.?

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

2 Cold

[concrete1992]

Feel real comfortable with 2 Cold making my ballot. Gets bonus points for being awesome as late as last year. Probably still killin' it but haven't been able to track anything down in full from this year.

[Shining Wiz]

From watching ECW on the network, Scorpio might be someone who falls off my list. Great athlete, superb flyer, but his matches don't seem to come together very well. I'll be curious what I think of his NOAH and WCW work now as I don't think I've watched them since they happened.

[BillThompson]

Scorpio always sticks out in my mind as a guy who was extremely sloppy. Perhaps I'm off base and a reevaluation of footage would show how off base I am. But, watching his WCW and WWF work it's hard to see a top 100 worker when so much of his output is middling bordering on sloppy bad.

[goodhelmet]

Scorpio is a guy that really impresses me every time I go and revisit an old match. Really great wrestler worthy of a spot on the 100.

[Dylan Waco]

Completely disagree with the idea that Scorp was especially sloppy and/or lacked the ability to put things together. To be honest I think he was one of the only guys in ECW who tried to work logic into matches and often times had to cover the for sloppiness of grossly inferior opponents. He was Sabu's best opponent ever, the only guy in ECW to get really inspired performance of Doug Furnas, had great stuff with RVD of all people in 98 when RVD was already trending into Carrot Top territory at a rapid rate, had a legitimately great match with a green as grass Bubba Dudley at a house show, and generally had good-to-great matches in pretty much any situation Heyman put him in. On top of that he was very good any time he got a chance in WCW (Windham, Benoit matches, some tag matches teaming with Bagwell v. Blondes, Eaton/Arn, et.), his NOAH stuff that I've seen is good and the few times he's shown up on tape in recent years he's delivered high end matches v. guys like Low Ki, Mike Cruz and others on the indies. He's also my favorite high flyer of all time because his big spots not only look pretty but also brutal as fuck, which is something very few people can say. He will easily make my ballot

[BillThompson]

How much of that brutality is due to him messing up moves? I say quite a lot, and I say that as someone who generally enjoys Scorpio as a worker. However, in watching him there's a pattern of just about every other match he overshoots on something or doesn't take the care he should and he smashes someone in the face, the stomach, etc. in an unprotected fashion because he got sloppy with the move.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I would want examples of this. For a high risk guy I don't think he was any more or less reckless than someone like Rey Jr. who regularly busted people open with his knee brace for example. Most of the time I thought Scorp's offense was brutal because it was a big guy, hitting an incredibly impressive spot with solid impact

[BillThompson]

Off the top of my head I can think of the Benoit match early in their respective WCW runs. There were a lot of instances in his WWF run, and and I recall him almost decapitating RVD when he returned to ECW.

 

The Rey point is an interesting one as I genuinely can't recall him doing that. Maybe that has something to do with his size and it never seeming like he was smashing into guys even when he was.

[Jimmy Redman]

With his knee brace Rey hurt Cody's face leading to his mask-wearing phase, and broke Taker's orbital bone in 2010 leading to Vegetative State Taker and Rey's World Title run, off the top of my head.

[Dylan Waco]

Watched the latest Scorp match to show up from this year in AIW today and I thought it was a really great effort for a guy who is only nominally active. It's not a "must see" match necessarily, but it was probably the best match on the show, and I think it showcases what Scorp does well - lay out a match smartly and then build to the big moments/spots that you want to see out of a Scorp match. In an age where so many guys just do their shit to do their shit this really stands out even more. Scorp is a guy who probably has as many or more "holy shit!" spots than just about anyone that he could pull out, but he only pulls out a few in the match and they were all done at the perfect time. That's a staple of how he works which is why those spots stay "holy shit!" spots and not "oh whatever, another flip/spot off the ropes."

 

Anyhow the bigger point here is that as I was watching this I got to thinking about Scorp as a candidate for this and I really feel like I could be the high voter on him. Part of that is because I saw all the ECW, so I saw him as a guy who never really phoned it in, and went out and had great matches against all sorts of guys even after he was allegedly past his prime. But what really hit me is that I need to watch the NOAH and maybe go back and watch some of the indie stuff, because if I'm looking strictly at the 90's I don't know that I think Eddie or Benoit were better than Scorpio. I realize that will sound insane to some people, but I really prefer Scorp in 96 to any individual year either of those guys had barring MAYBE Eddie in 97 and that had a lot to do with the progression of his character. Even saying that, I legitimately think Scorp was better from that 93-98 corridor when all three guys were featured to one degree or another regularly than Benoit or Eddie.

[Matt D]

I need Scorpio matches to watch.

 

Go.

[Exposer]

What HAVE you seen Matt? I'm guessing you've seen WCW Scorpio? The Douglas match from ECW is great, but I don't have any other knowledge of that run. I've liked him on the Indies in the last few years. He has a really good match with Mike Cruz (I think) from like 2013.

[Matt D]

I've seen a lot of 93 WCW Scorpio. I love the tags vs Austin/Pillman. I've not seen much of his ECW.

[Mr. Lacelle]

Vs Barry Windham, Vs Shane Douglas, vs Chris Benoit

[Parties]

Just rewatched Scorpio/Benoit from Superbrawl and the Slamboree tag of Scorp/Bagwell vs. Benoit/Eaton. The two big top rope aerials that Scorpio hits at the end of the tag are amazing. Because of his size, the height and force that he gets on his leap from the top is all the more incredible. That inverted splash he does where he moves in kind of a 180 degree shift from mid-air has maybe the best air I've seen someone get off while standing on the top rope.

 

Scorpio-Windham from the Clash is a match I've watched in full several times and it's always good, as much for what Windham does as for 2 Cold. Windham's brief tenure as the surly Lone Wolf champion with Misawa mannerisms doesn't get enough love.

[JerryvonKramer]

Dylan

 

2-3 Scorpio recommendations from ECW?

 

Another guy I really want to rank

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not sure what you have access to. A lot of my favorite Scorp stuff is on FanCam. That said I love the match v. Douglas from A Matter of Respect 96. Might be interesting to watch it back to back with Scorp v. RVD from Matter of Respect 98 (I think it was on that show), to see him pre and post Flash Funk. I like both of those a lot.

[kjh]

Eddie Guerrero vs 2 Cold Scorpio - ECW TV Title http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe64pw_eddie-guerrero-vs-2-cold-scorpio-ec_sport

This match got a lot of praise at the time, IIRC.

[Grimmas]

Scorpio was the best wrestler in the world in 1996. Was one of the greatest high flyers in wrestling history. Was tremendous in tags or singles, as a babyface or a heel, and for a very long period of time.

Feels like someone I need to vote for, but I haven't seen anything from the 2000s on, any recommendations for that?

[elliott]

I'd 2nd the call for 2000s recommendations, but I can point you to a few:

vs Necro Butcher 8/17/08 IWA-MS

vs Sami Callihan 9/27/08 IWA-MS

vs CW Anderson 8/8/10 TNA

vs ACH 2/2/13

I don't agree that Scorpio was the best in the world in 1996, but at the same time I don't think he's an unreasonable pick in one of the most top heavy years in history. I would also direct any skeptics to the 5/1/96 Shane Douglas match that is shockingly great considering its a Shane Douglas match. 

[Jetlag]

Scorpios universal appeal is incredible. Whether Mexico, Germany, WCW, ECW, Japan, seedy IWA Mid South show, he looks great and gets over.

[Clayton Jones]

Those are great 2000s recommendations. As for ECW, in addition to the stuff covered above (really love that Eddie match), he was one of my favorite Sabu opponents and had at least one really good TV title match VS Malenko. I'd be particularly curious for some NOAH stuff to look out for, that's the one part of his career that seems well received that I've never been crazy about. But yeah I'm very high on Scorp overall.