Wrestler of the Day – October 18: Barry Darsow
Today is a guy who had some very different gimmicks: Barry Darsow.
Darsow got his start in 1983 after attending Robinsdale High School with Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, Tom Zenk, John Nord and Nikita Koloff. That’s quite the class. We’ll start things off with Darsow as Crusher Khrushchev, a Russian sympathizer, at AWA Superclash 1985.
NWA Six Man Titles: Krusher Khruschev/Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Crusher/Dick the Bruiser/Baron Von Raschke
This is Crockett vs. AWA and the Russians are the champions of course. Big brawl to start and we eventually get down to Crusher vs. Krusher. Crusher bolo punches his way to prosperity and brings in the Baron. Nikita comes in and runs from the Claw. Nikita was a killing machine and he’s running from an old bald guy holding his hand in the air. Ivan comes in and gets beaten up by the old man as well.
Here’s Dick The Bruiser who is a scary man. He and the Crusher are identical. Dick and Ivan have a test of strength with the evil Russian cheating to escape. Back to Crusher vs. Krusher with Crusher taking over and bringing Baron back in. Ivan comes back in and takes Crusher down. He hits a legdrop which Nelson calls illegal. I’m not even touching that one. Crusher makes his comeback and it’s off to the Bruiser. Baron comes in and drops a leg which isn’t mentioned by Nelson. There’s the Claw and everything breaks down. We cut to a wide shot then go back to see Ivan pinning Baron.
Rating: D+. The ending is as quick as it sounds and since Larry didn’t see it either, we have no idea what knocked Baron out. I think you could see both other Russians but things were moving too fast. Nikita should have been in there running over people though as it’s what he was best at. This is the AWA though so it doesn’t think things through at times.
Off to the NWA with the same character at Starrcade 1985.
Mid-Atlantic Title: Krusher Khrushchev vs. Sam Houston
Speaking of crowning new champions, this is a tournament final because former champion Buzz Tyler had left the territory. Krusher is more famous as Smash from Demolition and this is his power vs. Houston’s speed. Houston is a cowboy character and the half brother of Jake Roberts. There’s something wrong with Tony’s mic as you can only hear whispers of what he’s saying.
Houston slips down and sends Krusher to the floor before holding his own in a slugout back inside. Krusher will have none of that and grabs Sam by the throat to slam him down. An elbow drop misses though and we’re back to a standoff. Houston grabs a headlock and a headscissors to take Krusher down. Khrushchev tries everything he can to get out of it before just picking Houston up and placing him on the top rope. Houston comes right back with an armdrag into an armbar and Krusher is down again.
Back up again and Krusher just throws him into the air and lets Sam crash down onto his face. Why over complicate things when you can do them that simply I guess. Krusher does the same thing off a gorilla press before punching Houston right in the jaw. Off to a bearhug but Houston fights out of it pretty quickly. The Russian goes up but gets crotched down, allowing Sam to pound away in the corner. The bulldog (Sam’s finisher) hits but Krusher gets his foot on the ropes. Sam celebrates too much and Krusher hits the Russian Sickle for the pin and the title.
Rating: C+. Nice little match here with a basic power vs. speed formula. Khrushchev was your typical American Russian (he was from Minnesota) so thankfully he didn’t talk all that much. Houston was way too small to be taken seriously and his career never took off, even in the far less serious WWF in the late 80s.
Another tag match at Starrcade 1986.
US Tag Titles: Krusher Khrushchev/Ivan Koloff vs. Kansas Jayhawks
The Jayhawks are Bobby Jaggers and Dutch Mantell, the latter of which would eventually join the WWE under a variety of names, including Zeb Colter. This is a rematch of a tournament final where the Russians won the belts and there are no disqualifications. Dutch and Ivan start things off but it’s quickly off to Jaggers to pound away on the older Russian. Ivan actually busts out a rollup for two but it’s quickly back to Dutch to work on the arm.
Krusher gets a tag in and it’s time for some stalling. Mantell pounds away on the forehead and the Jayhawks choke away in the corner before it’s off to Jaggers again. That goes nowhere so here’s Dutch again, but those sneaky Russians trick him into some double teaming. The power of AMERICA saves him from the Russians though and Dutch fights both guys off with relative ease. Ivan sends Dutch to the floor though and into the barricade to shift control.
Off to Krusher for some double teaming, but Dutch fights back with a double clothesline and there’s the hot tag to Jaggers. Some AMERICAN right hands have the Russians in trouble and a clothesline gets two on Ivan. Everything breaks down but there’s nothing the referee can do because it’s no disqualification. Ivan goes up top but gets hit by Dutch’s whip to bring him down. Krusher is sent to the floor but sneaks back up onto the apron to hit Jaggers in the back of the head with the chain, allowing Ivan to get the easy pin to retain the titles.
Rating: C. Another basic tag match here but it was at a slightly faster pace, making it a more entertaining match for the most part. The Russians continue to be a perfectly fine midcard heel act as the Cold War was still going on at this point. The Jayhawks never did much of anything as a team and would fade into obscurity pretty soon after the start of the new year.
It was off to the WWF as Smash of Demolition. We’ll start with a battle royal
Battle Royal
André the Giant, Ron Bass, Demolition (Ax and Smash), Billy Jack Haynes, Hercules, Hillbilly Jim, Hulk Hogan, The Honky Tonk Man, The Islanders (Haku and Tama), The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell), Blackjack Mulligan, Paul Orndorff, Lanny Poffo, Butch Reed, Sika, Nikolai Volkoff, and Koko B. Ware.
So in other words, it’s everyone but Savage and Steamboat plus a few tag teams. Smash is the original Smash and not Barry Darsow and Honky is wearing suspenders. Andre won’t let Hogan get in. Orndorff jumps Hogan to prevent the showdown. More or less all of the heels jump Hogan and all of the faces jump Andre. Honky is out thanks to Hogan. Andre puts Sika out.
These are hard to commentate on as it’s just eliminations and fights. Haku, a face at this point, is out. Andre headbutts Lanny Poffo and he’s BUSTED OPEN, and I mean BAD. Totally hard way too. That is a sick cut. They have to get a stretcher to get him out. That’s impressive. Other than that it’s pretty much you punch me and I’ll punch you in the ring. Ron Bass is out as is Mulligan.
The ultimate Hogan jobber, Volkoff, is gone. We’re just killing time to get to Hogan vs. Andre as Blair is out. HERE WE GO! Hogan blocks a punch…and Koko jumps on Andre to be annoying. Hogan throws out Orndoff but gets jumped by Andre who does the headbutts to the back of the head and throws him out easily. WOW.
In a VERY funny moment, Hogan and Andre are doing a staredown and Koko tries to jump Andre. Giant just smacks him in the head without even turning around. That was hilarious. Everyone gets together to throw Andre out.
Ok we’re down to Koko, Reed, Smash, Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules. Koko puts Reed out and we get faces vs. heels. Koko is out thank goodness and then we get rid of Smash too to get us down to the full nelson guys. Haynes goes for Bobby and there he goes for Hercules to win, which is probably the biggest win of his career somehow.
Rating: D. This was about Hogan vs. Andre and while that did happen, it was all of ten seconds long. Before and after that though, no one cared. This just wasn’t that interesting at all and it was about ten seconds out of eleven minutes. That can’t be a good sign. You probably should just go watch Wrestlemania instead.Demolition would take off around this point so we’ll jump ahead to Summerslam 1989.
Twin Towers/Andre the Giant vs. Demolition/Jim Duggan
Duggan is King of the WWF and has his face painted like Demolition but is rocking an American flag pattern of course. Akeem starts with the King with Duggan absorbing the trash talk and pounding away on the big man before it’s off to Ax for some pounding on the arm. Smash comes in and Demolition pounds Akeem down before bringing Duggan back in to crank on the arm as well.
Akeem finally gets in a shot to Ax’s ribs and it’s off to Boss Man who is immediately pounded down by the fresh Smash. Boss Man rakes the eyes to slow Smash down but Smash rakes the eyes right back in a good bit. Ax comes in again and cranks on the arm but gets sent into the wrong corner so Andre can come in and pound away with big right hands.
Akeem comes back in but misses a slow motion splash, allowing for the hot tag back to Smash who slams Akeem down in an impressive power display. Everything breaks down and Akeem hits a bottom rope splash on Smash, but Duggan hits Akeem in the back with the 2×4 to give Smash the pin.
Rating: C. It wasn’t much of a match but for above seven and a half minutes with these six guys, this was as good as you were going to get. Duggan was about as big as he was going to get in the WWF at this point as the fans were WAY into his Hogan-Lite character. Demolition was fresh off losing the tag titles but but they were still the most popular tag team in the company. Good, fun little match here which was much better than I was expecting.
Smash was part of the greatest Survivor Series team of all time in 1989.
Hulkamaniacs vs. Million Dollar Team
Hulk Hogan, Demolition, Jake Roberts
Ted DiBiase, Zeus, Powers of Pain
My goodness that’s an amazing face team. Ok, so now I get to explain Zeus. A month or two ago, WWE released No Holds Barred, a movie Hogan made in the late 80s, on DVD. The villain in the movie is named Zeus and you may notice he’s here. Zeus is played by an actor (not a wrestler mind you) named Tom Lister and the idea is that he’s living his character and is coming to beat Hogan up “in real life” because he lost in the movie. This would be like the guy who played Goldfinger trying to get revenge on Sean Connery. To make things even better, this was originally going to be the main event of Wrestlemania 6.
I’m sure you can see the problems mounting up already, with the main one being that Zeus doesn’t know how to wrestle. Other than that, there’s the idea that the movie barely broke even so a lot of people didn’t get the idea of the story. A positive twist to this is that a lot of people didn’t get the idea of the story, which probably kept the company from being laughed at more than they already were. Zeus wrestled like four matches ever, most of which were short or tag matches so he wasn’t in the ring long. WCW, the geniuses that they are, brought him back seven years later and put him in the main event of another PPV.
Anyway back to the match. The Million Dollar Team won’t let them get inside until Jake fires in the snake to chase them all away. Hogan and Demolition are the champions that you would expect them to be at this point. Zeus wants to fight Hogan one on one but their respective partners hold them both back. Jake starts with Zeus but the actor wants Hogan. They stare each other down and Hogan bounces off Zeus. Hogan pounds away but nothing hurts Zeus at all.
Instead Hulk finds the one weak spot on Zeus by raking the eyes. He slams Zeus down and amazingly enough, IT DOESN’T REALLY DO MUCH. Barbarian hits Hogan in the back of the head and Zeus twists Hogan’s neck around. He starts choking away and it’s a DQ for Zeus who is only pulled off by DiBiase and the promise of money. Just to clarify, we’re giving the Hulkamaniacs, an 80s dream team, a man advantage. Also why would DiBiase get Zeus off Hogan? Wouldn’t Hogan’s pain and agony make DiBiase happy?
It’s DiBiase vs. Hogan now and Hulk is in big trouble. DiBiase hammers away in the corner but Hulk gets a boot up in the corner and there’s the tag to Jake. A clothesline puts DiBiase on the floor and it’s off to Ax who demolishes DiBiase with ease. Smash comes in and they both pound Ted down. Back to Hogan who triple teams DiBiase along with Demolition. Back to Ax with a clothesline but DiBiase elbows him down out of desperation.
Off to Warlord as these two teams are still feuding even a year later. Come to think of it there wasn’t much else in between for those guys either. Dang did the division fall that fast in just a year? A shoulder breaker puts Ax down but Barbarian misses a middle rope elbow. Off to Warlord again but he gets clotheslined down. Fuji trips Ax up and a basic elbow drop is enough to tie the score.
It’s Smash vs. Warlord now but it’s quickly off to Hogan. Hulk softens him up to bring in Jake, which Jesse calls a mismatch. That’s likely based on power but I’m pretty sure Jake is taller than Warlord. Off to Smash but Warlord pokes him in the eye to take over. Back to Barbarian whose big boot is caught but Smash misses the elbow. DiBiase comes back in with those falling punches of his which get two.
It’s chinlock time with a knee in Smash’s back. DiBiase misses a middle rope back elbow of all things but Smash won’t tag for some reason. Barbarian makes a blind tag so the hot shot Smash hits on DiBiase doesn’t count and Barbarian takes his head off with a top rope clothesline for the pin. Jake comes in next but he can’t DDT Barbarian. Barbie whips Jake into the corner with authority although I’m not sure who’s authority it was.
Back to Warlord as things slow down a lot due to exhaustion. Jake dives for a tag but DiBiase slaps Hogan to draw him in instead. DiBiase piledrives Jake but Roberts gets a foot on the ropes to Jesse’s annoyance. Barbarian misses a headbutt and there’s the hot tag to Barbarian. He cleans house and gets two on Barbarian off a big boot. A suplex gets the same and my goodness how rare is it to see Hogan get a two count? Hogan fights off both Powers of Pain but they catch him in a spike piledriver which is good for a DQ for both of them, making it Hogan/Roberts vs. DiBiase.
Dibiase drops knees on Hogan before slapping on the Million Dollar Dream. That eventually gets two arm drops and Jake makes the save. That’s actually a nice touch as it makes the hold look stronger by needing a save instead of Hogan saving himself. Hogan finally breaks the hold and punches a jumping DiBiase. Hot tag brings in the Snake who cleans house. Jake drives in knees on DiBiase’s head as Hogan is dying in the corner.
Here’s Virgil to interfere and take the DDT. DiBiase drops a fist on Jake and puts his feet on the ropes to steal the pin. Ted pounds on Hogan who is still reeling from the long Million Dollar Dream. I’ll give him credit as that’s some great selling of a hold like that. Off to a chinlock and Hogan taps, which wouldn’t mean a thing for years. Hogan breaks the hold but they clothesline each other. DiBiase belly to back suplexes him and it’s Hulk Up time. You know the rest and there’s the legdrop.
Rating: C. There’s one major problem with this match: the first four minutes of this match give away the ending almost immediately. How can you give Hogan, Roberts and Demolitio a man advantage that fast? I’m not saying Hogan should have lost, but the Zeus stuff could have come later in the match and worked much better. Have Zeus stand on the apron most of the match and it would have worked fine. The fans finally reacted though.
Time for a six man at SNME XXVIII.
Ultimate Warrior/Legion of Doom vs. Demolition
Has there ever been a better collection of theme music in one match? The LOD cost Demolition the tag belts and Warrior is there….uh because. This would be a Survivor Series match in a month with Hennig and Tornado joining them. Piper points this out. We get a shot of Dustin Rhodes in the crowd. Keep that in mind as it’ll come into play later on. Warrior comes in and just destroys people.
The splash misses Axe though and he’s Smash. Demolition was more or less worthless by this point and would get squashed at Mania and be done. Hawk comes in and just wipes them out. You can see the crushing of them beginning. He continues the trend of beating all of Demolition by himself. Everybody comes in and brawls but Smash is more or less dead and gets caught by the splash for the pin. This was domination in every sense of the word.
Rating: D. Just not interesting at all as Demolition was made to look like a bunch of jobbers here. I don’t think anyone ever bought them anymore once the LOD showed up. Not the worst match ever, but a little challenge would have been nice. I still can’t believe we never got the big tag match with Demolition vs. the LOD. It should have written itself.Off to Prime Time Wrestling on May 14, 1991 for a rare singles match.
Smash vs. Jake Roberts
Jake chases him to the floor but gets caught in a wristlock to slow things down. Roberts fights up with some punches before taking over on the arm as well. There’s the knee lift but Smash bails away from the DDT. Back in and Jake is sent hard into the corner but Smash charges into a knee in the corner. Mr. Fuji uses his cane to break up a DDT attempt and Smash gets two off a side suplex. Not that it matters though as Jake floats over and plants Smash with the DDT for the pin.
Rating: D. Nothing to see here but did anyone consider Smash to be a serious opponent for a guy like Roberts? Demolition was dead in the water at this point and Smash would quickly be repackaged into the Repo Man. Jake on the other hand would turn heel and become one of the best villains in recent memory.
Speaking of Repo Man, here he is in one of the few logical stories he ever had. From This Tuesday In Texas.
Ted DiBiase/Repo Man vs. Virgil/Tito Santana
One thing modern WWE programming is great about is recapping stuff. That helps a ton as to someone that is randomly seeing this, this match makes NO sense. In reality, DiBiase had said that Virgil had stolen the Million Dollar Belt and recruited Repo Man to help him get it back, which worked. Since we need to fill in a match slot here, Tito joined Virgil and we get this match. The faces are already in the ring so what do you expect to happen here?
Virgil’s career is in essence over as far as importance goes here. He just had nothing to do once he left DiBiase and that singles feud went on about as long as it could so the WWF kept it going for another few months after it. Repo here is of course Smash from Demolition if you weren’t aware of that. Santana is more or less worthless here as El Matador.
The problem is that after that, no one remembered the great work he did as Tito Santana, as he was just remembered for the stupid gimmick that he did. As for the match, there’s not a lot to say. It’s your standard filler tag match that could have been on any house show or TV show of the era. I don’t know if it’s good enough for here but we’ll see I guess. Repo Man and DiBiase might be the weirdest combination of all time.
The main problem here is that there’s no point to having Santana in there. He didn’t have any feud with either guy that I can remember other than a few random matches with Repo that would have happened just because they were on the same level of the card. This is just a weird combination to have. The wrestling is fine, but it just comes off as weird all around. The match itself is once again the same kind of match that you would expect to see at a house show or on TV.
It’s actually not bad to be fair. It’s nothing to go out of your way to see, but I don’t have a problem with it being on a low level Tuesday PPV. The problem here is that Virgil is the guy that’s getting the hot tag. How is that appealing? With Sherri making a distraction, Repo hits him in the back with a knee to allow DiBiase to get the pin.
Rating: C. This was ok I guess, but it wasn’t anything great. The faces were just overly matched here and it was really easy to tell that. The formula worked fine here as it ca be expected with guys like DiBiase and Santana out there though, so that balances out I guess. This was pure filler.We’ll jump ahead to Wrestlemania VIII for an eight man tag.
Jim Duggan/Sgt. Slaughter/Virgil/Big Boss Man vs. Nasty Boys/Moutnie/Repo Man
Just a collection of lower midcard guys getting a Wrestlemania payday here. Neither team gets an entrance. Instead, Ray Combs of Family Feud is guest ring announcer for this and cracks a few jokes about the heels pre-match. The good guys clean house to start and hit a quadruple clothesline to clear the ring. Heenan announces that Shawn Michaels has left the building. Gorilla sums up our responses: “WHO CARES???”
Anyway Duggan and Sags start things off and it’s Jim hitting a few clotheslines to take over. Off to Slaughter who gets poked in the eye, allowing for the tag to Knobs. Slaughter pounds away to take over before it’s off to Boss Man for a boot to the face. Brian avoids a charge into the corner and Boss Man’s splash misses Repo Man as well, giving the heels control for a bit. Repo crotches himself and Boss Man slugs him down for good measure.
Off to Virgil who seems to mess up almost anything where he jumps into the air. Duggan tries to come in to save his partner but it’s back to Sags to beat on Virgil even more. A pumphandle slam gets two on Virgil and it’s back to Mountie. Everything breaks down and in the melee the Nastys are rammed together, allowing Virgil to steal the pin.
Rating: D. As I said, this was nothing more than a way to throw a bunch of guys onto the show at the same time. This was a much better idea than having four matches eat up a few minutes each as it accomplishes the same goal here. They were out there as filler before the world title match and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
Here’s a quick match from Summerslam 1992.
Repo Man vs. Crush
Repo tries to jump Crush but has no effect and earns himself a gorilla press slam. We head to the floor for a clothesline from Crush before heading back inside for some kicks to Repo’s ribs. Crush pounds on the ribs even more and hits a backbreaker, only to be poked in the eye to break the momentum. Repo hits a belly to back suplex but Crush no sells it and snaps off a belly to belly. A top rope knee drop misses and Repo goes after the knee with some very basic stuff. An elbow drop gets two and Crush easily fights up, catches Repo coming off the top in a powerslam and hooks the Head Vice for the submission.
Rating: D. This was a glorified squash to make Crush look good. They were this close to making Crush the next big thing in 1993 so seeing him look good here isn’t surprising at all. Repo Man is really impressive as he went from Smash to the new gimmick so smoothly that I didn’t realize it was the same guy until years later.
We’ll jump to WCW now with Darsow as the Black Top Bully, an evil truck driver. From SuperBrawl V.
Blacktop Bully vs. Dustin Rhodes
Bully is more commonly known as Smash or Repo Man. This is seriously the best they could put together? Dustin would be fired for the rematch: the King of the Road match, where the idea was they were in the back of a big truck which was driving along the road and the first person to pull a horn got the win. It’s somehow worse than it sounds but we’ll get to that later. Meng is thrown out before the match starts.
This is seriously Dustin Rhodes against the battling truck driver. Dustin is wearing gold by the way. That’s rather amusing. Naturally this is mainly a fight. I can’t get over the fact that this feud was already in FREAKING WARGAMES and we’re still having it here, 5 months later. Seriously, what in the world could there be left to fight about? The scary thing is that the feud ended because Dustin got fired, not because the feud itself ended.
Bully’s finisher is called the Breaker 1 9. Oh dear indeed. They’re having Smash work a ten minute plus technical match. Honestly, who thought this was smart? You have Sting and Savage in the next match and this is going to get more time than that. You could serious watch this match in fast forward and you wouldn’t miss anything. I mean it’s the same stuff over and over again with nothing new added in at all.
Unless you like hearing truck driving jokes from Tony and hearing him worship Dusty Rhodes which could take all day then there’s no reason to watch this. Rhodes is in trouble and Heenan says come on Bully, give him that parking ticket. In other words, Heenan is so gone that for one thing, he thinks that sounds good and number two, he thinks truck drivers have the authority to give parking tickets.
We spend three minutes talking about that Rhodes fire. And don’t let me get started about how many Rhodes and driving a truck on said Rhodes jokes they used. Dustin suplexes Parker in and that’s apparently a big deal. Never mind the whole double cage match where Dustin got to beat the living tar out of him. In one of the most clichéd endings there is, Dustin goes for a suplex and Parker hooks his foot so that Bully is able to get the pin. Heenan must have had a shot as he’s slurring again.
Rating: G. This is beyond failing. Let me make this clear: Goldust and Repo Man had an 18 minute match where we had non-stop truck driver jokes. We kept hearing about that stupid top wristlock (yes, that’s what Darsow’s finisher was. Smash’s real name is Barry Darsow in case you didn’t know) and we never even see it. This is now I believe the standard method of torture in 9 states.And it somehow got worse. From Uncensored 1995.
Blacktop Bully vs. Dustin Rhodes
For some reason WCW thought this was a good idea. See if you can figure this out: they’re in the back of a truck driving around Atlanta. The winner is the first person to get to the end of the truck and pull a horn. Both guys bladed which was illegal at the time and were fired for it. There are bales of hay in the back of it also. Yep, WCW isn’t a hick company AT ALL. Oh hey let’s get a police escort and a helicopter too.
This must have been SO fun for the people in the arena. I mean my goodness: SOMEONE GOT PAID FOR THIS!!! The problem here is that no one can actually stand up at all as they’re IN A MOVING TRUCK! Two idiots have to actually sit in the cab and watch this. Seriously, WHO CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA??? Yep there goes the sunlight. Oh I forgot to mention: this has been edited to Zimbabwe and back so the light changes about every 5 seconds.
Hey, let’s run a stop sign on film and show a shot of the truck driver for no apparent reason. They aren’t even really fighting. It’s them wandering from one end of the truck to another and hitting the other guy with a bale of hay. And all of a sudden Dustin is 8 feet away from where he was a second ago. Not to mention they had to rent the truck. The camera work here is crap as we can’t let anyone see blood. Nothing dumb about this AT ALL.
They actually call this a match. I’m stunned. Hey something good happens for once: the camera in the helicopter breaks up. Someone up there likes me. Oh hey, let’s sit on the side of a moving truck and hang off the side while a guy punches me. Nothing bad can happen from this. This has been going on over 8 minutes and they might have interacted for 50 seconds total. Other than that it’s stumbling around and trying to grab the horn.
It’s also gotten lighter so apparently this has gone on all night. It certainly feels like it. They’re up on the beam together and Dustin gets knocked off, allowing the Bully to pull the horn and win I guess. In the arena fireworks go off. This is a BAD idea already isn’t it?
Rating: H. As in HOLY GOODNESS WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THEY SMOKING TO COME UP WITH THIS????? Do I even need to make fun of this? Dustin took off and put on his shirt twice, yet you never saw him do it once. See what I’m working with here? The blading in the match would get Dustin fired and get him a job in WWF as Goldust, making it the best thing he ever could have done.
Darsow would be brought back in to WCW for a few shots on Nitro, including this one on March 9, 1998.
Goldberg vs. Barry Darsow
Darsow is more famous as Smash from Demolition or Repo Man. He’s just Barry Darsow, guy in trunks here though. Goldberg immediately takes him down by the leg before running Barry over with a shoulder block. A lariat sends Darsow to the floor and Goldberg rams him into the barricade and post. Goldberg misses a shoulder into the post though and Darsow goes after the arm. The arm is sent into the buckle but Goldberg snaps awake and hits the spear and Jackhammer for the quick pin.
And again on Nitro, September 21, 1998.
Finlay vs. Barry Darsow
They circle each other until Darsow hammers him into the corner but Finlay uppercuts him back. We hit an early nerve hold on Barry followed by a simple pull of the face but Darsow comes back with choking and a chinlock. Finlay counters a piledriver attempt and the tombstone is enough to pin Barry.
Rating: D. Pretty boring brawl for the most part here with Darsow not being interesting at all. Finlay was a decent enough midcarder but he needed more to work with out there. I’ve never understood the mentality behind booking these meaningless matches in the first hour. You have an uncontested hour with no Raw and this is how you use it?
One more time with Darsow as a golfer named Mr. Hole In One Barry Darsow on Saturday Night, December 19, 1998.
Barry Darsow vs. Kaz Hayashi
Darsow comes out with a bag of clubs and unrolls a mini putting green. He says he got two holes in one in a single round last week. Kaz says he’s played golf before but there may be some communication issues as he can only say yes. Hayashi has to sink a put in order to get a match with Darsow but he doesn’t seem to understand. Kaz puts the clubs in the bag and shoves it over, only to get nailed from behind. Darsow ties him in the Tree of Woe and hammers away but has his golf club taken away. A slam onto the putting green is enough for a DQ.
Much like Barbarian, Darsow is a guy that managed to stick around for a long time but in a different way. Unlike Barbarian, Darsow would take on whatever stupid character he was given and actually seemed to try, which is more than you can say for a lot of people. No he didn’t do much outside of being part of Demolition, but you can’t say he did the same thing over and over again for years.
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