Wrestler of the Day – October 24: Steve Lombardi
Steve Lombardi vs. Iron Sheik
Sheik bows to Blassie before we get going. A few kicks to the ribs and the camel clutch end this quick. The match ran about 30 seconds.
Off to a pretty famous show with the Brawl To End It All.
Battle Royal
Sika, Luis Rivera, Butcher Vachon, Antonio Inoki, Tony Garea, Jay Strongbow, Afa, Steve Lombardi, Dick Murdoch, Bob Orton, Adrian Adonis, Rene Goulet, Ron Shaw, Charlie Fulton, Terry Daniels, Iron Sheik, Tito Santana, Paul Orndorff, Sgt. Slaughter, Samu
This is of the 20 man persuasion and is the last match before we go on MTV. In other words, everyone that was on the card tonight other than Hogan and Valentine and Backlund plus three other guys that I don’t feel like figuring out. Slaughter goes right after Sheik and of course it’s too nuts to really call. Lombardi is out. Orndorff’s tights say O. P. Isn’t that backwards?
Orndorff is gone as Gene isn’t on commentary here. Strongbow is out and looks very old. Slaughter and Daniels are partners so they’re working together. Orton hits the floor twice but never over the top. Ok scratch that as he and Sheik are gone. Scratch that scratching as Orton is still in. Vachon is out.
This is of course very slow paced with not much going on at all. Adonis is gone and he’s ticked off about it. And of course he won’t leave. He’s still a biker dude at this point. Murdoch is gone and won’t leave either. Ok so he’s not out. This is confusing. Fulton is out. Not a lot is happening at all here. The Samoans are dominating for the most part.
Ok so Adonis is still in too? What the heck is going on? He goes out AGAIN but through the second rope this time. Shaw was eliminated and is back in anyway. Santana keeps Goulet from putting Slaughter out. Adonis, Slaughter and Murdoch all go out in about 4 seconds. There are about 10 left. Afa goes out and that gives us ten.
Tito is out and so is Sika. Rivera goes out and I can’t really tell who is left. Daniels gets us down to six when he goes out. Samu goes out I think and it’s Inoki, Goulet, Orton, Shaw and Garea. If you can’t get the winner from that list you have no business reading this list. Enziguri puts out Orton in some of the funniest selling I can ever remember. Garea is put out, leaving only Inoki as a face in there. Heel miscommunication puts Shaw out and Inoki wins easily.
Rating: D. Boring match here but the crowd was hot for it. This was just to give the fans something to get excited about as we went to the MTV show. Battle royals are usually solid for getting a crowd going and this was no exception. Boring match but the crowd liked it so I guess it did its job.
Off to the Superstars era, starting on January 24, 1987.
Steve Lombardi vs. Koko B. Ware
LET THE JOBBERS EXPLODE! Lombardi would become the Brooklyn Brawler soon enough. He beats up Roma who is still there after getting beaten down. That’s probably his biggest accomplishment of the decade. Fink does another voiceover and advertises Special Delivery Jones.
Dang that card must have sucked. Lombardi hits a decent spinning neckbreaker. Not bad at all. Koko has a muscle shirt on which looks very odd on him. The darker skinned jobber takes over and looks completely stupid. Lombardi is tough apparently. Koko hits the missile dropkick after WAY too long of an amount of time on offense to get the win.
Rating: C-. Longer match here but not terrible I guess. It’s fine for what it was is a good way to put this. The fans seemed to boo the ending though which is rather odd to say the least. Boring stuff but not terrible at all. At the ending of the day though, Brawler probably should be in the Hall of Fame over Ware and that says a lot.
And again on February 7 of the same year.
Outback Jack vs. Steve Lombardi
Seriously, how did I never make this guy OCW Champion (a lot of you won’t get that reference)? Don’t you always love how over the top wrestlers and characters like Jim and Jack have such great wrestling training? Isn’t that amusing? Lombardi gets some offense in here and controls for a few seconds. Jack is really bad. He wins with a bulldog that would be called a clothesline to the back of the head later named the Boomerang. Now if he used a clothesline to the front, he could be world champion for 9 months.
Rating: F+. It went long enough and wasn’t a total squash. That being said, it was just boring. Yeah Piper’s Pit is next and it’s kind of the biggest angle ever so that’s all you get here.
Some happier times on February 11, 1989 with Lombardi now known as the Brooklyn Brawler.
Red Rooster vs. Brooklyn Brawler
Best of? Seriously? Oh these commentators could make my head hurt. I think we’re in Philadelphia here but I’m not positive. This was a feud coming off of Mania and Rooster rebelling against Heenan, so Bobby sent Brawler after him. Yeah there’s a reason why he never went anywhere. Brawler is a force to be reckoned with apparently. That’s just comical. He’s not a great wrestler though. Hayes is annoying as all goodness a lot of the time.
Again, this is on the Best of the WWF…why? Hayes’ latest great insight is that Brawler is a brawler. Oh that makes my head hurt. We get a close up of the Brawler and Hayes says he’s not a very good looking man. This is closing in on ten minutes and it’s just bare bones stuff. I think someone hit a hip toss for the biggest move of the match. Rooster gets a sunset flip for the pin and next to no reaction.
Rating: D. For the Brawler, this would indeed be considered better times. Oh man this was boring. Just WAY too long for a match with the Brooklyn Brawler in there. Also I can’t stand Terry Taylor so that has something to do with it also. I know you can have a decent match with really basic moves, but this wasn’t it.
Another jump forward to MSG on December 29, 1991.
Chris Walker vs. Brooklyn Brawler
Walker is some muscle head that I’m sure Vince, ahem, enjoyed a few times in order to get a job. He’s awful as Brawler carries him to a bad match. I shudder to think what it would have been like without him. Walker looks a bit like Kerry Von Erich if he was more muscular. The guy can jump though. This is his debut apparently.
Brawler takes over for a bit and gets in his jobber offense. Gorilla wants Hulk to win the Rumble. Well of course he does. Did Gorilla EVER cheer against Hogan? Even against other faces? Walker looks good and that’s all he has going for him it seems. Small package gets two. Top rope cross body ends Brawler.
Off to Wrestling Challenge on March 27, 1993.
Mr. Perfect vs. Brooklyn Brawler
Perfect yells at Heenan on the way in which is kind of funny. He has Luger at Mania. Heenan is complaining about the toga aspect of Mania already. This is from the WWE Classics channel so the far more interesting part is the crawl on the bottom of the screen giving all kinds of old school title changes. In a pop up interview, Luger says he’s looking forward to one week from now. Brawler gets in some basic offense but the Perfectplex ends this in two minutes or so.
Time for a new gimmick on Wrestling Challenge on September 25, 1994 as the Brawler becomes a walking baseball. Just go with it.
Abe Knuckleball Schwarts vs. George Anderson
Another jump to March 24, 1997 on Raw.
Flash Funk vs. Brooklyn Brawler
The Rock vs. Brooklyn Brawler
From Smackdown on July 6, 2000.
HHH vs. Brooklyn Brawler/Kaientai
Another jump to Vengeance 2003.
Bar Room Brawl
Shannon Moore, Doink the Clown, Faarooq, Bradshaw, Brother Love, Nunzio, Matt Hardy, Chris Kanyon, Danny Basham, Doug Basham, The Easter Bunny, Sean O’Haire, John Hennigan, Orlando Jordan, Funaki, Los Conquistadores, The Brooklyn Brawler, Johnny Stamboli, Chuck Palumbo, Matt Cappotelli, and Spanky.
There’s a bar set up in the arena and we’re just going to fight in there. Los Conquistadores are Rob Conway and Johnny Jeter in case you’re wondering. Aaron Stevens is the Easter Bunny. He was on Smackdown for a cup of coffee as Idol Stevens in like 05 or 06. McCool managed him. John Hennigan is more commonly known as John Morrison, and this Doink is played by Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore.
In essence, this is a big OVW party as a ton of these guys were in OVW at the time. Most of the jobbers don’t get intros. Spanky is up on the bar dancing. Bradshaw says the rules are that the last man drinking wins as we’re testing the toughness and their livers. Ok that’s creative. Brother Love wants to pray before we start. Naturally it’s just a massive fight with no rhyme or reason to it. The Easter Bunny is drinking bears and getting punched. This is wrong.
O’Haire beats the APA up with pool cues. This is idiotic. Brother Love beats up Shannon Moore. I’d think that sums up why no one buys him. The Easter Bunny goes through a window. A bunny watching this would be traumatized for life. Hardy can’t break a table which is kind of funny.
There’s nothing of any kind of logic going on here at all. Funaki passes out from beer. Bradshaw beats up Brother Love and I guess that gives him the win. He’s the last man standing even though Farroorq is standing next to him.
Rating: N/A. This was a waste of about 5 minutes. Moving on.
And again to ECW on SyFy on August 1, 2006.
Brooklyn Brawler vs. Kurt Angle
Ankle lock. Do you really need another detail?
From Raw on July 12, 2010. Sadly enough I was there for this.
Santino Bunch vs. Regal Bunch
Her video is literally nothing but clips from the Brady Bunch. No one under the age of 15 gets this at all as she’s just some old woman. It’s weird seeing a Boyle County (big old corn fed Kentucky high school football team) shirt on WWE TV. Florence is the announcer here and says she’s feeling groovy. It’s Regal, Ryder (with regular tights now), Primo and Doink (I’d bet on Nick Dinsmore, aka Eugene) vs. Santino, Khali, Kozlov and Goldust. That’s actually a fairly accomplished face team.
Henderson gets a MUCH better reaction here than she did in the video earlier. Wow apparently it was Steve Lombardi as Doink, more commonly known as the Brooklyn Brawler. The captains start us off as Santino has been less annoying lately. Florence puts on Regal’s robe and Santino goes Cobra on us. I wonder if he’s Cobra Commander.
It’s a big mess already and here’s Doink. The crowd only cared about him for the sake of comedy. Khali comes in and falls victim to a squirt gun. A big chop ends this in like a minute. Khali’s music really is good. Henderson is a sport here and at least seems like she wants to be there which is a very good thing if nothing else. She kisses Khali afterwards which is disturbing.
Rating: N/A. Although anything with these 8 guys can’t be incredibly good. Thankfully it seems that the guest host concept is ending. Shame it’s only 7 months too late but whatever.
Raw, July 2, 2012.
Heath Slater vs. Doink The Clown
3MB vs. Alberto Del Rio/The Miz/Brooklyn Brawler
Rating: D. It should have been Ryder. Seriously, what else do you want me to say here?
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