You very well might have gotten some water up in the engine, in the cat converter is an obvious one. I had a lot of trouble with my converter before hollowing it out many years ago, but that was because it was clogged with goo, not due to water, but she also gave me hell when it was clogged, as if she was full of water. Any time you bog out in water, it isn't very wise to try to crank and crank with the chance of ruining your engine or other components. Not saying that you did have water up in your engine, but if I were stalled out in a puddle that came up to the exhaust, I would make sure not to crank the engine, get out of the water, let her dry out, making sure to check the traditional stuff like your dist. cap, air cleaner assy, exhaust and electrical system that is critical to running the engine. After all these things are surely not going to pose an issue with the engine running, then try to start her up again. This is a common sight along beaches with sound or back water access. Many people get a little carried away and soak everything. Snorkle or not, there are other things to get ruined due to getting stuff wet. In your case, the flaming tail pipe is kind of cool, perhaps if you were driving a `57 chevy or something of the sort.... even a hot rod Jeep or something, but not a mid-90's Jeep.... This could have been a result of your constant cranking and excess fuel built up, faulty plugs/dist cap or timing issues. All these could be the issue with the stalling with even just a little pressure caused by letting off the clutch in first gear. The Cat converter is also a likely cause for this as well. The red hot converter, same story.

I would check your wiring, to include ignition wires, then your cap and dist. itself, then the intake, then crawl up under and try to lift up on the converter, then muffler, if there seems to be excess weight, there might be a bunch of water in them, you can test the flow by disconnecting just forward of the converter, I believe your's has a 3 or 4-bolt connect there and try to run it that way. Just know that this will be quite loud and you don't want anyone too close to it. If you suddenly have all the power in the world with everything else doing okay after troubleshooting, then your converter is most likely due to be replaced.

Good luck with this and I look forward to hearing about what is going on!

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

Happy Jeeping!