Best of the WWF Volume 10 – The Squash is the Best Match Here

Best of the WWF Volume 10
Host: Gene Okerlund
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Alfred Hayes, Gene Okerlund

It’s that time again, although I’m rapidly running out of these that I can find copies of. This is from late 86, which wasn’t a good time for the company. The one good thing on here is Piper returning and his feud with Adrian Adonis, which is old school Piper at his crazy best. The rest….eh I’ve been surprised before. Let’s get to it.

That Coliseum Video intro. I dig it.

Gene does the intro and you can see Wrestlemania 2 playing in the background. This isn’t looking good for us people.

Ricky Steamboat/Junkyard Dog/Haiti Kid vs. Jimmy Jack Funk/Hoss Funk/Jimmy Hart

Haiti Kid is a midget wrestler. Gorilla says it’ll be a classic and I don’t see myself agreeing. Jack (can’t call him Jimmy here) and Steamboat start us off. Ricky controls early and speeds things up. I think we’re in Boston here if you’re interested. Jimmy (for the sake of simplicity, when I say Jimmy I mean Hart) comes in and all three “good” guys swarm him. We then get a sequence which can only be described as a dog picking up a midget and throwing him at a man wearing a Lone Ranger mask.

Off to Hoss (Dory Jr.) vs. the Dog. Let the stalling begin. Steamboat comes in again and this is still completely one sided. He clears the ring again and we stall some more. Jack FINALLY gets some offense in to give him team a break. Hoss’ piledriver is countered into a backdrop as is his suplex into a suplex. Small package gets two for Ricky. Jack comes in and hammers away a bit. There’s not much of a point in listing off what happens here because it’s exactly what you would expect I’d presume.

Dragon finally gets in a chop to Hoss and brings in the Dog. He and Hoss go down and Jimmy and Haiti Kid remind us they’re alive by doing a quick and pointless chase. By quick, I mean about two seconds. Dog and Hoss move for about ten seconds so it’s time for a double clothesline. Dog needed a nap. Jack knocks Dog down so here’s Jimmy to a bit pop. Dog no sells it and Jimmy PANICS. The Kid comes in and everything breaks down. Dory hits Dog with the Megaphone and takes out the Kid so Jimmy can pin the tiny one.

Rating: D. When a manager and a midget get by far and away the biggest reactions of the match, you can kind of tell that something is wrong with your match. It was more or less a tag team match with interfering managers. That being said, it wasn’t a good tag match which really hurt things here. Boring match and REALLY long.

Tito Santana vs. Bob Orton

This is around the time when Orton is siding with Adrian Adonis so he’s even more hated since it was arguable that Adonis was the most hated heel in the company (not top heel, most hated. There’s a difference.). Gorilla says Tito has Excellence of Execution. We’re in Boston again here. They exchange basic stuff to start and hit the mat. Clipped to talking about Terry Garvin and that’s not going to go well.

Orton hits a hip toss and a slow flying headscissors. He misses a dive in the corner though and kind of crotches himself. Tito sends him to the floor because he’s not a nice person at times. Back in a jackknife cover gets two for Santana. This is shaping up to be LONG. Tito throwing on an armbar would seem to confirm my theory. Clipped again to later in the armbar so you know this is going to last awhile.

Orton gets up and just pounds him down as the fans boo. Backslide gets one for Tito and it’s back to the arm. As the fans’ eyes begin to close, Orton finally wakes them up a bit with an atomic drop. His shoulder hits the post though and so it’s back to the arm. Bob sends him to the floor to make this slow down even more. Santana gets thrown into a barricade and knocks it over.

Tito gets draped on the rope coming back in and Orton walks around even slower. And now we go to a chinlock. Grrrrrreat. Thankfully Tito atomic drops out of it and they both fall down. And then Bob grabs it right back. Tito punches him down and grabs the leg. He works it over a bit and here’s the Figure Four. After Orton gets the rope, Tito sets for the headknocker but takes a head to the balls (at least it’s a complete set) and Bob takes over again. They slug it out and the bell rings for a time limit draw. Apparently this ran 30 minutes.

Rating: D+. It’s ok but that’s just it: there’s nothing interesting here at all. They do a little bit of something and then they do a little bit of something else. They repeat this for the twenty minutes that we see of it. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened here if this was shown in full. What does this prove to anyone? That’s why you don’t see many of these that often. Also, this is proof that simply going 30 or 60 minutes as so many old guys claim to have done, doesn’t mean it’s any good.

The Machines vs. Big John Studd/King Kong Bundy

LONG story here that eventually helped set up Hogan vs. Andre. Giant Machine isn’t here though so there’s no point in listing it off. The Machines are Big Machine and Super Machine, or some combination of Axe from Demolition and Blackjack Lanza. Bundy hammers on let’s say Giant Machine. Heenan got run off early in the match and jumps in on commentary here.

While he rambles, Studd gets hammered down. Off to Bundy and Hayes thinks Studd is injured. He and Lanza collide and no one goes anywhere. Instead they hit each other and Bundy goes back into the corner. Avalanche misses and Team Heenan isn’t doing that well. Axe comes in (the announcers don’t know their names either) and pounds on Studd but gets blasted in the head to shift momentum.

Bundy and Studd collide in the corner and Heenan has to play peacemaker. Axe almost splashes Lanza but puts the brakes on. Studd pops him in the back of the head from the apron to shift momentum again. Studd goes for the mask but Lanza makes the save. Hot tag brings in Lanza and everything breaks down. Lanza hits a jumping back elbow for a very delayed two. Delayed because Heenan is late running in for the DQ so the referee basically just stops before the three.

Rating: D+. These matches were meant to be fun, but when you didn’t have the Giant in there it really hurt things. Not a good match or anything, but it wasn’t particularly meant to be. They did their thing here and the ending hut it a lot, but that doesn’t make it a good match. Still it’s old school fun though so I can’t complain much here.

Tag Titles: Dream Team vs. US Express

This is the Rotundo/Spivey version. The Dream Team has the tag titles but I don’t think they’re on the line here. Ok so they are. That works too. Rotundo gets beaten on by the champions but he speeds things up to get out of trouble. He gets his knees up in the corner and works over the arm. The good guys do the blind tag thing because faces in wrestling are usually evil. As Spivey gets beaten down the Dream Team tries the same thing and get thrown out. See? Heels aren’t heels because they’re evil. They’re heels because they get mistreated.

Rotunda vs. Valentine at the moment with Mike missing an elbow to give the champions the advantage. Valentine beats on him a bit until he gets caught in the Arn Anderson holding the arm down to the mat then jump crotch first onto the knees spot. Was that a Mid-Atlantic thing? Beefcake gets a sleeper on Mike but it gets countered pretty quickly. Greg breaks up the tag attempt and goes after the leg.

Now I know the Figure Four was a Mid-Atlantic thing. I’m still not sure on the crotching spot but you see it enough that it almost has to be. We finally get the hot tag when the Figure Four doesn’t work so it’s off to Spivey to clean house. For some reason the challengers tag twice after Spivey comes in. To no shock Rotundo got beaten up quickly so it was back to Spivey. The champs try to cheat but it can’t get the pin. Beefcake counters a rollup into a very sloppy looking one, grabs the furry boots (What is with those? So many people use them and I still don’t get the point) and gets the clean pin.

Rating: C-. The match was ok but I have no idea what the point was in having the challengers get beat that cleanly. It looked pretty bad as Spivey pretty clearly could have kicked out but didn’t. There was something a few seconds earlier though that looked a bit botched, so maybe that wasn’t the planned ending.

Brutus Beefcake vs. Billy Jack Haynes

Luscious John steals Jack’s hat so Beefcake can take an early advantage. I think we’re in MSG here. Brutus takes over due to the hat thing and uses his bare bones stuff to take over. At this point he was really boring and VERY limited. He also had the same style haircut as my cousin Sharon, which is a knock on him and not her. Haynes counters a suplex into one of his own and both guys are down.

This is one of those house show matches that is on a house show for a reason. There’s nothing interesting at all and the guys in there aren’t really all that interested in cranking things up past the bare minimum. Haynes gets a clothesline to take over again and my goodness END THIS ALREADY. He hits a splash to the knees but apparently it doesn’t hurt him as he covers for two anyway. And then Luscious John (Beefcake’s manager if that wasn’t clear) trips Haynes for the DQ.

Rating: D-. I liked Beefcake when I was a kid but MAN was this boring. They weren’t interesting at all and the fans weren’t really interested either. Neither guy was anything of note and they were only there to fill in about ten minutes on the card. At least it’s over though and we have to move on to something better right?

Islanders vs. Jimmy Jack Funk/Mr. X

Seriously, THIS IS THE BEST OF THE WWF??? This is the Islanders’ debut. We also have a female referee. X vs. Tama to start us off. Tama runs him off and it’s Funk in now. Ok back to X and Haku. The Islanders are faces here due to not being in the Heenan Family yet. Backbreaker gets two for Haku and this referee counts slow. Back to Tama vs. Funk and they mess up a backdrop as Funk stops, then gets backdropped.

Funk hits Tama in the back while he’s hitting the ropes to take over. This is already boring me, which is the running theme of this tape and arguably this series. Tama gets beaten down for awhile as this match is going WAY too long for a debut. Jack hits a shoulder breaker and middle rope fist drop for two. It was nice of Tama to scoot closer to the ropes for Jack to hit him.

Tama finally escapes a neckbreaker into a snap (minus the snap) suplex to put both guys down. Oh come on just get to the tag so we can get to end of this already. They tag but the referee doesn’t see it. I love that but NOT IN TEN MINUTE DEBUTS! Tama ducks a clothesline and then a double clothesline puts both guys down. FINALLY Haku gets the tag and cleans house before bringing Tama back in for a splash RVD would be jealous of for the pin after nearly 13 minutes.

Rating: D. This was their debut. If you want a team to be impressive in their debut, you make it a squash. You don’t make it a match that lasted longer than most main events would go. They beat up jobbers in their debut, but the WWF managed to screw this up. How could they manage to do that???

Roddy Piper vs. AJ Petrucci

AJ is a jobber who looks like a combination of Tugboat and Akeem but even less memorable. This is Piper’s big return and MAN is he over. This is from Superstars. AJ slaps him so Piper puts one hand behind his back for the rest of the match and beats the tar out of him. This is the crazy fired up Piper that is just AWESOME. This is awesome stuff with Piper giving him a brutal beating with all kinds of strikes and never taking his arm from behind his back except for at the end for a double axe to the face to end it. Total squash but AWESOME.

Now we get to the BIG angle of this time. Piper had left for awhile, I think to film some movies, and comes back to host the Pit. But the Pit is gone and Adrian Adonis has his own show called The Flower Shop. He also has Bob Orton, Piper’s former bodyguard, in a pink hat as the new bodyguard. They break Piper’s leg with a chair so Piper limps out (in wrestling trunks for some reason) and DESTROYS the Flower Shop with a ball bat. Adonis jumped Piper on the set of the Pit and put him to sleep. Then Piper ran in on an Adonis match and the locker room had to empty to break them up.

Roddy Piper vs. Don Muraco

Muraco is an Adonis crony. Piper jumps him to start and he’s WAY over. He was easily the second most popular guy in the company at this point. Muraco has a beard here which doesn’t work on him at all. They go to the floor and Piper slams him into a chair. Piper bites him coming back in and then gets him tied up in the ropes.

There’s a bulldog for no cover. There are cops walking around in the front row for some reason. Muraco sends him to the floor and Fuji gets in a shot to take Piper down a few pegs. Piper gets sent into the post and is busted. I can’t actually see it but Gorilla said it and Gorilla wouldn’t lie. Back in now and Piper spears him down to take over. Oh yeah it’s dripping off his face. Muraco is busted too.

This is a total brawl now. Muraco swings away but you don’t do that to Piper. He takes over with punches and hits a suplex for two. Fuji pokes Piper with the cane to shift momentum one more time. They’re both bleeding a ton. Fuji tries to interfere again but Muraco accidentally knees him to the floor and Piper rolls up Muraco for the pin.

Rating: B-. Fun brawl here which is what Piper was best at. He could go out there and have a totally wild brawl but his charisma was more than enough to carry him to a good match. Well maybe fun is the better term that good but you get the idea. This of course all culminated with the hair vs. hair match at Mania with Piper vs. Adonis.

Overall Rating: D. This was a pretty dull tape and a lot of that is due to a combination of match selection and the era in which its set. This was a bad time for the WWF as other than the main event which had Orndorff vs. Hogan (not mentioned here) there wasn’t much going on. The midcard was dominated by Savage and Steamboat was out injured or was about to be. Weak tape.

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