HIDDEN GEM: Legends Battle Royal: A Gem I Wanted Unhidden
Battle Royal
Date: November 16, 1987
Location: Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Baron Mikel Scicluna, Sailor Art Thomas, Pedro Morales, Edouard Carpentier, Al Costello, Gene Kiniski, Gino Brito, Bobo Brazil, Dominic DeNucci, The Crusher, Nick Bockwinkel, Pat O’Connor, Ray Stevens, Rene Goulet, Chief Jay Strongbow, Lou Thesz, Killer Kowalski, Arnold Skaaland
Now THIS is something I have wanted to see for a very long time now as it’s a legends battle royal between a bunch of names you do not often see in WWE. Each legend gets an individual entrance, as they should. We start with the usual brawling but the camera is WAY too zoomed in, meaning we miss the first few eliminations. Thesz puts out someone we can’t see and then brawls with Kowalski as we ignore everyone else.
We settle down to more brawling as I try to figure out who is who and who is still in. Costello catapults Garea out and we get a fight between Bockwinkel and Kiniski. Bockwinkel drives a bunch of shoulders into the ribs and then zoom in on Thesz trying to get rid of Crusher. Costello is tossed by DeNucci and Carpentier gets rid of Goulet. Kowalski goes after Thesz, who knocks him through the ropes.
Back in and Brazil is knocked out and we’re suddenly down to six, with Bockwinkel, Thesz, Crusher, Kowalski, O’Connor and Stevens. Stevens backdrops Crusher out and Thesz punches Kowalski off the top and out to the floor. O’Connor whips Stevens out and then gets rid of Bockwinkel, leaving us with O’Connor vs. Thesz. O’Connor takes him to the mat but gets caught in a hammerlock. They get back up and Thesz backdrops him out for the win at 11:11.
Rating: D. This was like a much more serious version of the Gimmick Battle Royal, as it was all about everyone getting one more entrance. Some of the wrestlers got far stronger reactions than others while a few just received polite applause. It was still great to see though, even if the quality had absolutely no value whatsoever.
Post match, Thesz and O’Connor pose together for old times’ sake.
And now we get THIRTY MINUTES of comments from almost involved, plus Freddie Blassie. I have no idea why this stuff wasn’t released in any kind of mainstream format before because it’s a great thing to see.
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