[2000-01-15-WCW-Saturday Night] Mark Jindrak vs. Elix Skipper

[soup23]

Jindrak is doing a basketball gimmick. Weird to think that this was still airing on TBS now that we have really reached the doldrums of WCW as this is essentially an NXT match for them. Skipper looks good in this taking Jindrak's offense. Jindrak was fine here and had the size but is missing that gimmick or charisma change to really make him jump off the page. I was shocked to see Elix pick up the win. *3/4

[Loss]

Jindrak looks like a million bucks and is a great athlete, but doesn't have the charisma needed to be a top star at this point, sadly. Okay match, but Elix Skipper came across to me as the better investment of the two in terms of guys with star potential, although I could only imagine Vince McMahon's reaction the first time he saw Jindrak. The number of empty seats are sort of alarming, but I guess that's what happens when you actively teach fans not to care about most things.

[Laney]

This was an interesting match to watch. Elix Skipper was one of my favorite guys in the last year of WCW. It was funny to see him hit the move that would eventually become his finisher within the first minute of the match. Jindrak is using the character of a former NCAA basketball player, complete with carrying a ball to the ring with him. There are some lame basketball themed taunts to go with it too(miming shooting a ball and dribbling). It served Jindrak well to drop this stupid gimmick. Surprising to see Skipper pick up the win here after the match and commentary seemed to focus on Jindrak.

[Chess Knight]

The video I'm watching this on implies the uploader has a video series called "muscle rookie hunks", and Mark Jindrak is one of the first that came to mind for that label apparently. Skipper's a fun seller and I really liked the headlock reversal thing he did, but I didn't think much of anything Jindrak did here looked any good. I'm pretty heavy on offense looking good sometimes so maybe that's it but man his looked really light to me. I thought during the failed suplex that it looked too much like Jindrak fell down instead of Skipper being the aggressor. His selling was awkward and strange. Could just be that he was green, I don't remember feeling this way when I watched him in CMLL. I love seeing short tv matches with wrestlers I rarely watch, though, so I regret nothing. And the basketball gimmick is kind of hilarious. Imagine someone like Cesaro having it. I dunno why but I wanna see that.

[Willninho]

This is fine as a young green guys match but the fake crowd noise is hysterical. They pipe in massive heel hit in a half empty crowd for a basic heel move in the beginning.

[GSR]

Jindrak is doing a basketball gimmick and Scott Hudson says how he received a lifetime ban from the NCAA for rough conduct on the basketball court and then showed up to the Power Plant. Mike Tenay talks about Skipper and Jindrak having a bit of heat at the Power Plant and that being the reason for this match. The audience is really sparse for this. Skipper has a really smooth side headlock escape that he transitions into a cross armbar, while his future ‘play of the day’ finisher is just a transitional move here. Tilt-a-Whirl backbreaker from Jindrak and also a torture rack/reverse neckbreaker combination. He heads outside the ring and onto the apron then comes off with a springboard clothesline attempt. Skipper ducks out the way and comes off the top with a missile dropkick for the pin.

 

Jindrak is clearly very green here, but has a few nice moves (including a running crossbody splash into the corner along with what I’ve also mentioned) and is a tailor made heel. I was much more impressed by Skipper who is the better wrestler (and also athlete) by some distance and looks as though he would be a fine addition to the cruiserweight roster. Match probably went a couple of minutes longer than was required.

[goc]

This was kind of your standard "not good but not bad" WCW Saturday Night match and nothing about the actual match really stood out except that Jindrak needed more aggression. The biggest takeaway from this was how obvious the fake crowd noise was with Jindrak getting a ton of piped in boos while the crowd was just sitting there not doing anything. Also amusing is that they didn't bother to pipe in any cheers for Elix Skipper on his comeback.