Wrestler of the Day – September 12: Tom Zenk
Here’s an 80s pretty boy: Tom Zenk.
Zenk got his start in 1984 and we’ll pick things up in his rookie year against Jimmy Garvin in the AWA.
Jimmy Garvin vs. Tom Zenk
After a good while spent on getting Garvin’s clothes off, we’re ready to go. Jimmy grabs a headlock to take him down to the mat but Zenk fights up with a slam. Garvin starts cranking on the leg to slow things down until Tom counters into a chinlock. That goes nowhere as Garvin hammers away on him in the corner. Off to a chinlock on Zenk for a bit before Jimmy throws him out to the floor. Garvin chokes on the rope but Tom comes back in with a hiptoss, only to miss a dropkick. Back up and Tom runs into a boot in the corner, setting up Garvin’s brainbuster for the pin.
Rating: D+. Garvin was better than his most famous period would suggest but this wasn’t the most interesting match in the world. Zenk was pretty generic here but that’s what you have to expect from a rookie like this. It was your standard chinlock/choke match which can only go so far.
Still in the AWA on January 10, 1985 in Winnipeg.
Nick Bockwinkel vs. Tom Zenk
Feeling out process to start with Nick quickly taking him down off a headlock. Back up and the slow start continues until Nick throws him out to the floor. Zenk comes back in and gets sent face first into the buckle, only to nail a dropkick and hiptoss for two. Bockwinkel sidesteps the other dropkick though and nails the piledriver for the pin. Short and almost a squash here.
Off to 1986, still in the AWA.
Masked Superstar vs. Tom Zenk
In theory that’s Ax of Demolition. Superstar has one of the top heel managers, Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie, in his corner. The masked man hammers away against the ropes and plants Zenk with a hard slam. A stiff right hand to the face has Zenk reeling and Superstar throws him out to the floor. Back in and a running clothesline sets up a swinging neckbreaker to pin Zenk.
Zenk would get hired by the WWF to be part of the next young, fast paced tag team. He and Rick Martel would hook up as the Can-Am Connection with one of their earlier matches taking place on Superstars, January 24, 1987.
Don Muraco/Bob Orton vs. Can-Am Connection
This would eventually open Mania III. I’ve always liked that one so this should be at least good too. They start immediately which is fun. Danny Davis is the referee here. Fink does his third voiceover of the night. Dang he’s getting paid tonight. We have Martel vs. Orton here. The Connection was good but I’ll take Strike Force any day. Fuji calls out the Connection in an inset interview. Speed vs. what you could call power I guess is always fun.
Zenk was good but his attitude was absurd. This isn’t as good as Mania would be but it’s ok for what it is. Also that’s what a show like this is for: polishing for the major show which I’d certainly say Mania was. You know, just the biggest card of all time. It’s a big brawl and they throw it out. Solid until then I guess.
Rating: C-. Not bad for what it was. It’s rare enough to see four big names in a match here but this worked fine. The Connection was a good team and the heels were always good for a quick one. Decent enough for a power vs. speed match, even though Muraco and Orton weren’t the strongest team in the world.
Something WWF would do a lot of back in the day was one night tag team tournament for a title shot later in the night. One of these took place in Toronto on March 15, 1987. Here are the Connection’s two matches.
First Round: Jerry Allen/Dan Spivey vs. Can-Am Connection
This is a very odd choice for a team here. Mike Rotunda had left and Spivey had no partner. Allen on the other hand….was a jobber. He’s kind of like the Carlito of his day, minus the credibility. Yeah think of him like that. Allen and Spivey get no reaction. Can-Ams are the young pretty boys who get big girl pops. Jimmy talks about his clients’ three matches at Mania, including saying that Alice Cooper couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles on it.
That line would be in Honky Tonk Man’s future song, so I wonder who wrote that one. Valiant is REALLY annoying. Allen and Zenk start us off. Wow I’d be so riveted to this match. They botch a leap frog. That’s hard to do. Jimmy lists off some songs his band had. For those of you that don’t know, Hart was in a mainstream band called the Gents and they actually weren’t that bad. They toured with the Beach Boys in the 60s.
We hit the formula stuff so that’s fine. They mention Allen isn’t Spivey’s full time partner. At this time, Valiant is Demolition’s manager. This isn’t very interesting at all. To be fair that could be due to a lack of heel talent. There’s a lot of that going around tonight apparently. This match has been 80% rest holds. Everyone comes in at once and in a pretty weak looking spot, Martel hits Allen with a cross body for the pin.
Rating: D. Just boring as all all goodness here. It was mainly due to the terrible heel team though so I can’t complain much there. The Connection was pretty solid though so I have to give them the benefit of the doubt here. Just a bad match overall though as Allen and Spivey seeming to be a thrown together team.
Semi-Finals: Can-Am Connection vs. Demolition
Demolition is kind of popular here, foreshadowing their face turn…a year and a half from now. Ok so it’s not foreshadowing at all. This is apparently a main event in any arena in the entire world. When anyone says that, the first thing that comes to my mind: WHY IS IT NOT MAIN EVENTING THIS SHOW THEN??? Demolition is dominating for the most part here as you would expect them to. What follows is more or less as basic of a match as you could possibly ask for.
This simply isn’t much to talk about but it’s not bad. Demolition dominates for a good while until Martel gets the hot tag. Everyone comes in, the legal guys go to the floor, Zenk hits the post, and there’s your countout to put Demolition in the finals.
Rating: C-. Not as bad, but still not very good whatsoever. The screwy endings continue here which is rapidly getting on my nerves. It’s another formula match here which is fine but it’s getting very repetitive. Demolition was clearly going to be a big deal in the division but it was still a little ways away.
Here’s Zenk’s most famous match in the opener of Wrestlemania III.
Can-Am Connection vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton
No story here as they’re just two teams having a match. The Can-Am Connection is Rick Martel (Can) and Tom Zenk (Am) which would kind of evolve into Strike Force. Martel and Muraco start things off with Rick hitting a quick shoulder to take Don down. A hip block and a kind of monkey flip put Muraco down again and it’s a standoff. Zenk comes in for a double monkey flip and it’s off to Orton who gets armdragged down as well.
Bob gets hit from one corner to the other until Zenk takes him down with an armbar. All Connection so far. They trade full nelsons and Muraco hits Orton by mistake for two. Bob gets his arm cranked on a bit until FINALLY making the tag out to Muraco. The bad luck continues for the heels as Don is slammed down and has his arm worked on as well.
Orton and Muraco finally start cheating with a knee to Zenk’s back and a shot from the middle rope. Zenk and Bob ram heads and it’s a double tag as everything breaks down. The heels are sent into each other and a double dropkick takes Orton down. Muraco gets double teamed and a cross body with a trip from Zenk is enough for Martel to get the pin.
Rating: B-. I’ve called this the best opening match in Wrestlemania history and I don’t think it’s that far off from the truth. There are definitely matches of higher quality, but think about what an opening match is supposed to do. It’s designed to set the tone for a show and this one did that. It’s about five and a half minutes long and the good guys beat the bad guys with some nice continuity. It’s nothing flashy but it wasn’t supposed to be. This is a very nice, basic tag match and the crowd was into it, which is all it was supposed to accomplish. Good stuff here.
One more WWF match at SNME XI.
Can-Am Connection vs. Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff
He tries to sing and gets hit in the head with a 2×4. Isn’t that called massive assault? Zenk and the Sheik start us off. Duggan, after BASHING VOLKOFF IN THE HEAD WITH A BOARD just sits right back in the front row. Sheik gets a good abdominal stretch on Sheik. This show needs to end. Duggan runs in AGAIN and Martel rolls up Sheik for the pin.
Rating: D-. I have no idea how you can get away with the whole Duggan thing but the 80s were a very strange time for good guys. I mean, look at Hogan cheating like there was no tomorrow if nothing else. The Connection would be gone soon but they weren’t terrible at this point.
The Connection would split due to Zenk leaving over a contract issue. Martel would wind up teaming with Tito Santana as Strike Force and it’s hard to believe their push wasn’t originally planned for the Can-Am Connection. Anyway, it was off to WCW for Zenk where he would have a good bit more success. We’ll start things off at Clash of the Champions VIII.
Cuban Assassin vs. Z-Man
Z-Man is Tom Zenk, a young guy in great shape freshly over from the AWA and the WWF before that. Assassin gets hiptossed over and a dropkick sends him to the floor as Z-Man is starting fast. Back in and we hit the top wristlock on the Cuban followed by an armbar. Assassin fights up and headbutts Z-Man to take over, only to miss a middle rope headbutt. Z-Man grabs a sleeper and gets the quick win.
Rating: C-. Z-Man looked good and that’s exactly what you need out of a debut match like this. The Assassin was nothing special and therefore a good choice for a jobber here. Z-Man would stick around for a few years and thankfully switch away from the sleeper, which really didn’t work for a high flier like him.
Z-Man would be paired with Brian Pillman in another young fast team. They would actually pick up the US Tag Team Titles from the Freebirds in early 1990. Here’s the rematch at Wrestlewar 1990.
US Tag Titles: Freebirds vs. Brian Pillman/Z-Man
The Birds are challenging here. They get sent to the floor immediately and the champs steal their clothes and dance around as Badstreet plays in the background. Funny moment. The crowd is all over the Birds. They weren’t much in the ring but they were heat machines. Today is Flair’s birthday according to JR. We finally get going with Brian vs. Hayes. Brian knocks him around with a clothesline and Garvin fluffs his hair.
Speaking of Garvin here he is and he gets Z-Man. Z takes him down with a headlock but misses a dropkick. Garvin, ever the Rhodes Scholar, ducks his head and gets kicked in the face. Back to Brian for another headlock. Hayes comes back in and things are going slowly to start, implying that they have a lot of time to work with. Sunset flip with a great jump gets two for Pillman.
Z-Man works on the arm and goes into a Fujiwar Armbar to Hayes. Back to Garvin who loses any advantage that Hayes had gotten on Z-Man. Pillman comes in as the fans seem a bit distracted. Hayes comes in and hooks a sleeper (sleep hold according to Ross) as JR talks about Paul Boesch, the promoter of Houston Wrestling for decades, demonstrating this hold in the second World War.
Brian escapes and sends him into the corner but charges into a great left hand to put him down. Brian rolls through a cross body for two. Back to Garvin as this is going a lot longer than I was expecting it to go. Since Garvin can’t manage to keep Brian in one place he makes the tag to Z-Man. Z-Man puts the Z Lock (sleeper) on Hayes but Garvin comes off the top for the save.
Garvin hooks a chinlock as this match has gone well over fifteen minutes so far. Now they mix things up with a Hayes chinlock. After 18 minutes, we’re told this is a rematch from the finals of the tournament where Z-Man and Pillman won the titles in the first place. Z-Man gets a small package for two. Hayes is like enough of that and goes back to the chinlock. JR thinks Hayes looks like Alice Cooper. Terry wants to know if Hayes knows who Buffalo Bill is.
Hayes goes up and kind of steps off with no significant contact being made. Back to Garvin as this needs to end really soon. Who decided to give the Birds over twenty minutes? Top rope fist gets two for Hayes after a non-tag. Bulldog gets two as Pillman breaks it up. Back to the chinlock #4 but Zenk drops him with a DDT of his own. There’s the tag to Pillman and the fans care more than I expected them to. Pillman cleans house but Hayes brings in a title but Pillman comes off the top with a cross body as the title is being taken out to retain the titles.
Rating: D. Technically the match was fine but MY GOODNESS this ran long. It clocks in at almost twenty four minutes which is just far too long. Pillman and Zenk can easily go that long but the Birds were already through their whole set of stuff at about 10 minutes in. The solution of course? Go 14 minutes past that. WAY too long and if you cut this to like 12 minutes it’s probably an okish match.
Same idea but with the TV Title at Clash XIV.
TV Title: Z-Man vs. Bobby Eaton
Z-Man is defending and Eaton comes out to LOUD canned BOBBY chants instead of theme music. Feeling out process to start with both guys trading holds on the mat. Z-Man can’t hiptoss him down and we have another standoff. Eaton takes him down with an armbar to take over but goes up top and gets dropkicked out to the floor.
Back in and Z-Man cranks on the arm so Eaton pops him in the jaw and sends the champion into the buckle. Eaton goes up again but gets dropkicked out of the air to change momentum. Z-Man tries to speed things up but charges into an elbow in the corner. Eaton’s top rope knee drop gets two but Z-Man is too close to the ropes. A pair of rollups get two each for Z-Man before he backslides Eaton to retain the title. Replays show Eaton’s shoulder was up just before the pin but it doesn’t change anything.
Rating: C-. Z-Man wasn’t great in the ring but he was a good fast paced act that could make for an entertaining match. Eaton was still trying to find himself as a singles guy after the Midnights broke up but it would take a few more months. Z-Man had already lost the title to Arn Anderson but the title change hadn’t aired on television yet.
Z-Man’s biggest feud in WCW was against Steve Austin who had recently taken the TV Title from him. Here’s a rematch from Clash XVI.
TV Title: Z-Man vs. Steve Austin
Austin is defending and has the evil Lady Blossom with him. They fight up against the ropes to start and then take it into the corner for a little variety. Z-Man grabs a hammerlock and takes it to the mat but Austin is in the ropes pretty quickly. A shoulder puts the champion down but Z-Man doesn’t follow up for some reason. Another shoulder drops Austin again but they fight up against the ropes instead of anyone trying a pin.
Austin takes him down with a headlock but Z-Man counters into an armbar. Back up and Z-Man hits a superkick but Austin bails to the floor. Z-Man dives onto the ramp to take Austin down but misses a top rope cross body. We hit the chinlock on the challenger for a few moments before Z-Man fights up and charges into the Stun Gun. Austin doesn’t cover and gets small packaged for two before getting caught in the sleeper. Steve is quickly in the ropes where Lady Blossom gives him a foreign object to knock out Z-Man and retain the title.
Rating: D+. Much like some of the other matches tonight, this was pretty dull stuff. It was a lot of laying around and Austin bailing to the floor before getting in a single shot to cheat. It makes sense for Austin to run like that, but Z-Man not following up just stopped any momentum that he had going.
Z-Man would go after the Light Heavyweight Title against former partner Brian Pillman at Wrestlewar 1992.
Light Heavyweight Title: Flying Brian vs. Z-Man
This should be awesome. These two used to be the US Tag Champions. Jesse wants the cheating to start before the match even begins. I love heel announcers when they’re good at what they do and he’s one of the best of them. They keep doing the same stuff because they know each other so well. That’s an old tactic but it works very well no matter what so I can’t complain.
Crowd is oddly dead here, but I think it’s because there hasn’t been much to cheer for in about an hour. Jesse does some play by play here which is very different. Him basically drooling over the idea of a punch being thrown is great. This starts off pretty slowly but it’s going with the slow build as you can tell the ending is going to be awesome. Z-Man misses a Vader Bomb so Pillman can take over again.
And now it’s half crab time for no apparent reason. Pillman would soon join up with Austin to make the Hollywood Blondes who were as awesome as you can be in a 6 month reign as a team. A figure four goes on and Z-Man has a bad knee. They’re going with a more mat based and psychology heavy match here and it’s working rather well. The crowd is hot for it which is a good thing.
Z-Man can sell the knee work very well too. Crucifix, one of Pillman’s signature moves, gets two. Jesse is BEGGING for them to cheat. Z-Man gets a cross body but goes too high with it and nearly breaks Pillman’s neck (which more or less happened at last year’s Wrestle War which we’ll get to later) but it only gets two.
Both guys are down and more or less out. In a nice bit of psychology, Z-Man fakes a knee injury and kicks Pillman as he’s coming down in a cross body. Nice move out of Bret Hart’s book….although that might not have been written yet. Z-Man misses a missile dropkick and Pillman gets a rollup to retain. Nice ending.
Rating: B+. Another very good match here. Pillman was just awesome at this point and this was no exception. Excellent match here with two guys just going out there and having a blast. Z-Man was insane for the most part and it’s a shame because he was very good in the ring when he wasn’t ticked off. This was a great match with a mixture of a lot of styles. I can’t quite get it into the A range, but it’s well worth watching if you’re bored.
Without much success, Z-Man would be put into another pretty boy tag team with Johnny Gunn. Here they are in a six man at Halloween Havoc 1992.
Z-Man/Johnny Gunn/Shane Douglas vs. Arn Anderson/Michael Hayes/Bobby Eaton
This should be good. Gunn is more famous as Tom Brandi. So we have three guys who are young and muscular vs. a heat machine and two wrestling masters. We’re in Philadelphia. You can fill in the blanks yourselves. Gunn and Anderson start things off with Anderson pounding him into the corner. Gunn comes back with a bad dropkick and Z-Man hits one of his own. The good guys clear the ring and get booed out of the building.
Z-Man comes in legally and cranks on Arn’s arm until Bobby comes in to take over. Eaton pops him with a right hand and the place ERUPTS. Off to Hayes who gets cheered too because he’s the king of playing to a crowd. Shane comes in to work on Michael’s arm and is booed in the process, which isn’t something you would ever expect to see in Philly. Back to Eaton who is armdragged down immediately.
Eaton takes Shane into the corner and pops him with a right hand too, but he gets promptly taken down by a flying headscissors. Back to Z-Man who these people just hate. He hooks a leg bar as Jesse rants about Shane probably being a right wing Republican. Z-Man hooks a sleeper on Anderson but it’s quickly countered. Back to Hayes who pounds away and hooks a chinlock on Zenk. Eaton comes in but leaves quickly with a blind tag to Arn.
Anderson KILLS Z-Man with a clothesline and the place erupts again. Even Jesse is stunned by this and he doesn’t stun easily. Hayes hooks a rear chinlock but Zenk slams him into the mat to escape. Double tag brings in Shane vs. Anderson but Eaton cheap shots Douglas in the knee to stop the comeback, again getting a pop from the audience. Eaton drops a top rope knee drop onto the knee and hooks a Figure Four (with help from Hayes of course). Shane turns it over and atomic drops Anderson, but they hit heads. Hot tag to Gunn and everything breaks down with Gunn hitting a Thesz Press to pin Hayes. The booing is great.
Rating: C+. If this has been ANYWHERE other than Philadelphia, this would have been an excellent opener. I can’t say the fans turned on the good guys because they were never on their side in the first place. You had to know this was coming if you knew anything about the city, but the match itself was fine. Jesse’s reactions to the crowd were entertaining too as he sounded genuinely surprised.
We’ll wrap it up with Z-Man’s last big match in WCW at Slamboree 1993. This one needs a lot of explanation.
Tag Titles: Hollywood Blondes vs. Dos Hombres
This is in a cage. This is one of those angles that is so full of backstory it’s unreal. Ok so who in the world are Dos Hombres. Well they’re “luchadores” in masks. However, they’re introduced as Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas. Now one of them is Steamboat. The other however, isn’t Shane Douglas. It’s actually Tom Zenk. So in other words, we have a guy portraying Shane Douglas portraying a luchador who everyone “knows” is Shane wearing a mask.
Now that probably requires an explanation too. Steamboat and Douglas had been tag team champions and feuded with Brian Pillman/Barry Windham. Windham had to leave for some reason so they substituted in Steve Austin and made the team the Hollywood Blondes. They eventually won the titles and held them for like six months. Oh and these are UNIFIED tag titles, because the NWA thinks people still care about them because the NWA is stupid.
Anyway, the new champs beat the former champs time after time. They were scheduled to face Dos Hombres, some new team from Mexico, in what was supposed to be a squash. However, Dos Hombres started fighting like Douglas and Steamboat to the point that everyone said yeah that’s Steamboat and Douglas. They were even introduced by those names. Anyway, the thing is that Douglas had been fired and in the non-title match it was Brad Armstrong under the mask. In this match which is for the titles, it’s Tom Zenk. Got all that?
Despite this being in a cage they have to tag which gets annoying fast. Steamboat and Austin start but it’s off to Pillman very quickly. Yeah that’s Steamboat. You can tell those chops anywhere. Pillman can’t put him into the cage and there’s an armdrag. Off to “Shane” who is way too skinny to be who he’s portraying. There are two guys in suits that keep getting shown and I don’t know who they are.
Both “Shane” and Austin block head shots to the cage but Austin goes in back first just a bit. Both guys hit the ropes and Austin gets backdropped. Not much of a cage match here but a pretty good wrestling match up to this point. Austin eats cage in the first good shot into it. Back to Steamboat (I think) against Pillman who takes over. Yeah there’s an armdrag so it’s “Shane” who got tagged in.
Gorilla press puts Pillman’s back into the cage. Off to Austin who can’t do much because his back hurts from going into the cage. He gets caught in the Tree of Woe but from the top of the cage instead of the corner. The challengers do the camera thing that the Blondes are known for in a funny bit. Austin gets down and takes over again. I have no idea which Hombre is in there.
Middle rope elbow gets two for the future rattlesnake that has hair here. The Blondes have to hide the use of a towel. In a cage match? Pillman comes in and jumps into a boot to put both guys down. I think that’s “Shane” in there but I’m really not sure. They’re full body suits so you can’t tell them apart at all other than mannerisms. Austin cuts off the tag at the last second and we keep at it.
“Shane” gets a dropkick to send Austin into the cage. Oh yeah that’s a Steamboat shot from the apron. Austin blocks another tag with something like a spinebuster. Larry says that Austin can be a legend if his body holds up. Holy prognostication Larry! Rocket Launcher sends Brian into “Shane’s” ribs and they both down again. There’s the tag to Steamboat who cleans house. Austin tries to hide and there’s the Flair shot from him. You figure out what I mean by that and why the audience laughed at it.
Everything breaks down and Steamboat takes the mask off. He climbs the cage and takes out BOTH Blondes for two with a huge cross body! AWESOME! Even the bell goes off inadvertently and I can’t blame them. Steamboat DDTs Austin for two and does the same to Pillman. Stereo dropkicks get two. In a rushed but kind of sweet ending, the Hombres get the champs in opposite corners and whip them together but Pillman reverses and sends Steamboat into Austin who hits a Stun Gun to retain.
Rating: B. Good match, although I’m really not sure why it was inside a cage. Anyway, the point is that this was solid stuff as the Blondes were totally awesome throughout their entire run so this was pretty much an automatic good match. Zenk is good in the ring but he was in over his head with these guys. The backstory is a mess but it was still a breath of incredibly fresh air after watching the legends go at it for an hour.
Zenk is a guy that wasn’t the best worker in the world but he had a great look and could pass on his decent skills. However, to say he screwed up by running his mouth is an understatement. I can’t do them justice, but the rants he went on about backstage politics in WCW are some of the funniest things you’ll ever hear and I highly recommend looking them up.
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