Today we have a guy who was a fairly clean inspiration for some of Steve Austin’s antics: the Sandman.

Sandman got started at some point in the late 1980s to early 1990s. We’ll start with his best known promotion as he got started back in the early days of ECW as a surfer, hence the name Sandman. Here he is at Ultra Clash 1993.

ECW Title: Shane Douglas vs. Sandman

Sandman means nothing at all yet and is still from the beach. Shane is part of the Dangerous Alliance and has Heyman with him to a HUGE pop. Shane with dark hair is weird to put it mildly. He and Heyman leave for no apparent reason and the fans are all over Sandman. We do the ten count thing or Shane loses the title. He makes it by like 6 and here we go.

Shane has tassels on his boots ala Ultimate Warrior. That’s something he did later in his career and I never liked them on him. Small package gets two for Sandman and then Shane takes over. Remember that this is still just a regional title at the moment and it really means little at the end of the day. Shane dominates with basic stuff and this is yet again, boring.

The fans think this is boring and Joey says they’re cheering for Sandman. Not a bad little spin on it I guess. The camerawork begins an ECW tradition of not being able to stay on the action and instead looking at the empty part of the ring. Sandman with a flying tackle off the top and down goes the referee. Paul comes in with the phone and Shane gets a shot with it for two. A top rope cross body is rolled through and the tights end it for Shane as he retains.

Rating: D+. Not bad but if they were going for epic this was WAY too short. Sandman would begin his transformation into his more famous persona soon enough. Shane would be considered God in ECW forever and few would care. This was a title match for the sake of a title match and was pretty boring, much like most of the card. There were few storylines to speak of at this point, but that would all change soon enough.

He would start getting more violent though, including this match at The Night The Line Was Crossed.

Sandman/Tommy Cairo vs. Pitbull/Rockin Rebel

This is a dog collar chain match. Sandman is getting more ticked off at this point but is still a beach guy. Jason is managing Pitbull #1 (Gary Wolfe) for you ECW fans that care. Wolfe and Cairo are chained together as are the other combination. They might have been in the ring for 6 seconds and then they hit the floor. Rebel is busted open and I think Cairo is too. Well that didn’t take long.

It’s more general insanity but unlike the last show I did the cameras can actually zoom in a bit. You can barely see things but it’s better than not being able to see at all. You can tell who is who here and you can tell what they’re doing. Pitbull gets two in the ring on Cairo. A bunch of violence leads to Cairo pinning Pitbull with a belly to belly. More brawling follows.

Rating: D+. Not terrible I guess and there seemed to be a reason for this….whatever it was. Sandman would start his transformation soon enough and make himself an ECW legend, changing the company forever. At this point he was terrible though, as were the other three so there you are.

Sandman would become his usual self by 1995, including this match at November To Remember 1995.

Tag Titles: 2 Cold Scorpio/Sandman vs. Public Enemy

Woman manages Scorpio and Sandman who are champions (along with Scorpio being TV Champion) and come out to Whomp There It Is. Whoever gets the fall here faces Mikey Whipwreck later in the show for the world title. Woman is kind of hot actually. She could look rather good at times. Scorpio dances a lot while we’re waiting on the Public Enemy to get here.

I have no idea what the face/heel alignment is here but I think Public Enemy is face. According to Gertner the TV Title is on the line here also. Yeah apparently Sandman and Scorpio are the heels here. Sandman is billed from…..Utah? Seriously? Scorpio is doing a thing where he says he doesn’t weigh as much as he really does. He does have a gut on him.

Public Enemy is leaving soon after this for ECW apparently. Scorpio offers them a chance to leave so let’s have a dance off. Uh…..ok? Scorpio cuts a rug and Joey dances too. The camera catches him and his reaction is great. Rocco does a robot which isn’t horrible. Scorpio does one also and destroys him. And now we set dancing back about a thousand years with Sandman dancing too. Joey: “Yes but can he walk a straight line?” They want Woman to dance and it’s very short. Crowd is WAY into this.

The champs jump the dancing morons but Public Enemy clears the ring quickly. AND IT’S TIME TO DANCE! The music is still playing as I think we have a comedy match on our hands. Just a hunch mind you. Ok so now we’re ready to go with Sandman vs. Grunge. Sandy grabs a headlock but is sent to the floor. Everything breaks down quickly and they all head to the floor.

Everyone grabs a chair and gets back in the ring for a good old fashioned duel. Sandman and Grunge are thrown to the floor and Scorpio follows. They fight up the aisle and a fan offers 2 Cold a frying pan. He steals someone’s prosthetic hand instead. Well why not? Sandman goes into the crowd and Grunge is busted open. He hits a splash for two on Scorpio as we’re bordering on having a regular match.

Rocco hits Sandman with a pumpkin pie and Sandy is in the crowd again. Woman pulls Sandman out of the crowd. Sandman tags himself in and he jumps over the top (!!!) with something like a dropkick. Rocco comes in and hits a headscissors to take over. Slingshot legdrop by Sandman but he doesn’t cover.

Off to Scorpio who hits a slingshot splash for two. Scorpio vs. Rock at the moment if you’re all lost. Rock avoids a dropkick and escapes a tilt-a-whirl, only to miss a moonsault. The fans chant for SD Jones for some reason as Scorpio hits a double underhook powerbomb which is broken up at two.

Standing moonsault eats knees and it’s off to Sandman. Rocco (they’re Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge if you’re totally confused by me changing named) still can’t bring in Grunge so Grunge comes in and pounds on Sandman. Woman cracks Rocco with a kendo stick and Sandman dives over the top to take out Grunge. Sandman gets backdropped onto a table which doesn’t break. FREAKING OW MAN.

Grunge finally goes through the table and everything breaks down even further. Rock hits a big moonsault to the floor as they need to end this soon. A broom handle is brought in from somewhere with Scorpio taking over with it. There it goes though so 2 Cold settles for a Stinger Splash and moonsault for two on Rocco. We’re tagging again now and Grunge gets the hot tag. Sandman comes in sans tag but Public Enemy screws up their finisher and Sandman falls on top for the pin.

Rating: D. Yeah this went too long. These guys aren’t the ones you want having seventeen minutes. This was better as a comedy match but then again I might have just wanted to see Woman dance. Either way, not much here and Sandman getting the pin was pretty much the only logical choice since he lost the title to Mikey in the first place.

Sandman was regularly the ECW Champion around this point, so here’s a title defense at House Party 1996.

ECW World Title: Sandman vs. Konnan

Sandman is defending. Woman is with Sandman and is in a different dress than earlier tonight. Sandman has an abbreviated entrance here, only taking four and a half minutes to get into the ring. This is back when Konnan was young and awesome. Awesome to the point that he would be on Nitro in less than three weeks. The champ stalls a lot as the fans boo Konnan for some reason. Oh it’s because he sold out after being in ECW for just a few months.

Konnan takes him down by the arm and works over the champ’s legs. With the legs tied up, he hooks a suplex head grip and cranks away on Sandman in a cool submission. Sandman accidentally falls into a counter (Joey’s words) and it’s a standoff. Konnan takes him right back to the mat in a rolling neck lock. Even Joey doesn’t know what to call it. Sandman actually tries to sit out with Konnan and they head to the floor.

Back in and a clothesline takes Konnan down as Sandman finally gets in some offense. Konnan kicks him in the face and speeds things up again. Sandman throws him to the floor and hits a plancha to crush Konna against the railing. Both guys are down now which is about the last thing they needed to do at this point. Konnan hits him in the head with a chair but Sandman elbows him in the head.

Konnan gets draped over the barricade and Sandman is in control after finally taking it to a place where he has some skill. They head into the crowd for a few seconds and then back inside the ring. Sandy pounds away and Konnan is cut open. Konnan gets sent into the post and we head outside again. Sandman throws a table onto Konnan and the three of them (table included) head back inside.

Sandman can’t superplex Konnan through the table and is thrown through it himself. Woman slaps Konnan, allowing Sandman to hit him in the head with a kendo stick. Rey Mysterio comes out and hands Konnan a cane of his own. Konnan gets in some shots with the cane but Sandman fires back. They both collapse and Woman pulls Sandman to his feet to beat the ten count (which should have ended when he was on his feet) and win the match.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t all that impressed here and the ending hurt it a lot. The other problem here was that with it being known that Konnan was leaving, he wasn’t a threat to take the title at all. Also this was before Sandman really had developed the limited in ring skills he would acquire, so this was a lot more of a fight than anything else. Nothing to see here but Konnan’s submissions weren’t bad.

I have to include a match from his long running feud with Raven, so here’s their match from Cyberslam 1996.

ECW World Title: Raven vs. Sandman

Sandman, flanked by Missy Hyatt, finally starts his entrance after about two minutes of standing around. Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie quickly bail and the brawl is on after nearly eight minutes of entrances. Raven throws him outside and hits a plancha to take over. Sandman whips him into the barricade though and grabs a chair. He stands around for awhile before just kicking Raven in the head and walking around with him for awhile.

Back in and Sandman hits a delayed brainbuster before throwing Raven to the floor. There’s a plancha by the challenger before punching him into a chair back inside. Some Meanie interference lets Raven hit the Evenflow but Missy distracts the referee to prevent the pin. Sandman pops up and hits a DDT of his own, drawing in Raven’s chick Kimona. It’s catfight time and Stevie comes in for a superkick to give Raven two.

There goes the referee (like it matters) as Sandman “hits” a “legdrop” for two. The referee goes down again and here are Richards and Meanie to run interference. The Bruise Brothers (Harris Twins) come in with a double chokeslam for two on Sandman. Raven can’t get Sandman up for a suplex so he puts Sandman on top and pulls him face first onto the chair. The DDT on the chair retains Raven’s title.

Rating: D. Another overbooked mess that people call wrestling for some reason. The match was a glorified disaster but the best stuff in this feud was always the talking and storytelling. That being said, unfortunately we still had to sit through the wrestling and get driven crazy by the matches. Bad stuff here, again.

Here’s a rather infamous match from November To Remember 1997.

Sandman vs. Sabu

This is a tables and ladders match but you win by pinfall. Sabu gets tired of waiting and dives through the ropes to start the fight on the floor. Back in and the Triple Jump Moonsault gets two for Sabu but Sandman hits him with a forearm to knock Sabu into the ladder. Sabu gets thrown to the floor so Sandman launches a chair over the top and onto Sabu’s head. A hard whip sends Sandman into the barricade for Air Sabu up against the steel.

They take turns suplexing tables onto each other as Sandman seems to be favoring his arm. Sabu is laid on a table but it breaks before Sandman can do anything. Instead he takes Sabu over to another table and goes up for a top rope legdrop, only to miss Sabu completely and crash down to the floor. A piece of what’s left of the table is set up in front of the barricade but Sabu sends Sandman through it in a crash.

Sandman is laid on a table between the ring and the barricade and Sabu drives him through it with a springboard legdrop. Back in and Sabu kicks Sandman in the face for two before throwing a ladder at his head. Sandman pops back up like it was a flower but Sabu puts him on a table outside. Sabu gets on a ladder and tries to ride it down through Sandman but he leaves it about two feet short, meaning Sabu completely misses Sandman and the table and the ladder hits Sandman in the arm.

Now Sandman goes up for a flip dive to Sabu on another table but only hits table. Back in and Sabu’s Triple Jump Moonsault onto a ladder onto Sandman as the ring crew sets up more tables on the floor. Sabu gets superplexed onto a ladder but they botch a spot where the ladder is supposed to be catapulted into Sandman’s face. Instead he just kind of rolls over the ladder, prompting Sabu to throw the ladder at him and cut Sandman’s head open.

Sabu pulls out a fork and stabs Sandman’s cut before being sent outside so Sandman can throw yet another ladder at him. They try the teeter totter spot again but Sandman completely misses the ladder and just crashes down to the floor. This match is dying before my eyes. Back in and a swanton bomb onto a ladder crushes Sabu, followed by an electric chair drop. There has been one cover in the entire match. Another flip dive from the top through Sabu through a table goes badly as the table clearly breaks before any contact is made.

Back in and Sabu misses a fireball so Sandman goes after Alfonso, allowing Sabu to nail a top rope kick to the face. Sandman is nice enough to roll onto another table at ringside so Sabu can go up top with a ladder to drive Sandman through it again. Sabu takes him back inside for an Atomic Arabian Facebuster (Sabu goes up top, puts something metal under his legs and drops down onto Sandman) with a ladder to finally end this.

Rating: F. This was one of the least interesting things I’ve ever seen. Between the completely blown spots, the lack of selling for most of the match, this going about three times longer than it should have and the lack of anything in between the spots, this was the insanity that gives ECW it’s horrible reputation over the years. This wasn’t wrestling and had nothing to do with wrestling at all. I understand that ECW is about violence and going to the extreme, but there’s a way to go about that without looking horrible like this.

And a better match at Cyberslam 1998.

Dudley Boys vs. Balls Mahoney/Axl Rotten/Sandman

Rotten and Mahoney come out in like a minute. Sandman’s should take roughly four….except he’s coming through the entrance like a normal wrestler. I’m not sure what to make of that. Somehow the entrance still takes nearly five minutes. Bubba is still a country hick and he talks down to Sandman a bit. He wants to wrestle so he gets caned in the head.

The brawl begins of course and Big Dick (the third Dudley) can’t be hurt by kendo stick shots. Instead he hits a chokeslam to Sandman and pounds away a bit. This is one of those matches where it’s just a wild brawl with no real coherence or anything like that. The Dudleys are in control here other than D-Von who is having issues with Axl. Balls hammers on Bubba as well as Sandman crashes to the floor. Oh that was an “elbow drop”. Got it.

Bubba vs. Balls in the ring at the moment. Superkick puts the future Bully down but Bubba manages a superplex of all things. We’ve got a cheese grater to the head of Rotten and he’s busted now. D-Von is beating on him now. There’s no tagging or semblance of order if for some reason you’re confused and were expecting some.

Mahoney is thrown into the crowd for a bit. All three Dudleys put him on a table while his partners are in the ring and down. Bubba goes up on some stage to dive off…and here’s New Jack. He clocks Bubba with a chair and dives onto Balls instead. Spike Dudley and Kronus are in the ring now and it’s a 9 man triple threat tag team match now. Sure, why not?

Dudley Boys vs. Balls Mahoney/Axl Rotten/Sandman vs. Spike Dudley/John Kronus/New Jack

New Jack’s song plays throughout the match even though Spike and Sandman are the only guys in the ring. Spike gets a bunch of two counts off various small person offense. Sandman goes to the floor but Spike misses a baseball slide. Kronus is busted. Balls is busted. You can make your own jokes there. A standing version of the move that would become known as What’s Up hits New Jack.

The most famous combination of the Dudley Boys sets for the 3D on New Jack but Jack falls down. The big brawl is still going here but it’s far slower. Granted they’ve been fighting for over ten minutes, but why are the new guys so tired? Kronus and Sandman both work on Big Dick. Lucky. It’s table time but it’s not set up. Pretty much just random punches with an occasional weapon being used.

Mahoney gets a belly to back suplex on Spike and sets for a moonsault through the table. Spike pops up and gets something like a tornado DDT through the table to Balls. Axl hits a REALLY inverted reverse DDT to eliminate Spike’s team. Yes this is elimination now. Bubba calls for the 3D on Sandman but the partners interfere. Something resembling a Stun Gun onto a chair is enough for Sandman to pin Bubba and end this.

Rating: D+. I still don’t like these things but at the same time this wasn’t as bad as some of these got. The biggest issue of all is the time, as this ran nearly 20 minutes. Far too long but they kept it mostly entertaining. The extra three guys coming in helped as it energized things a bit. Not horrible but nothing we haven’t seen a few million times already.

The closest thing Sandman had to a steady partner was Tommy Dreamer, including this match at Heat Wave 1998.

Tommy Dreamer/Sandman vs. Dudley Boys

Joel introduces himself as Joel “The ladies call me Fred Flintstone because I make their bed rock” Gertner. Sandman and Dreamer cut off the introductions there though and spend several minutes on their own entrance. Sandman has a bad neck coming in due to the Dudleys’ attacks. Dreamer and Sandman spit beer into the Dudleys’ eyes to get rid of Big Dick and the brawl is on.

They quickly head to the floor where Sandman throws a table at Bubba. Dreamer drapes both Dudleys over the barricade and puts chairs over their backs so Sandman can dive onto both of them. Back in and Dreamer neckbreakers D-Von out of the corner as Sandman brings in a piece of barricade. Sandman gets sent hard into the steel and his neck is hurt again. Trainers check on Sandman before taking him out on a stretcher.

The Dudleys double team Dreamer with suplexes and headbutts as the match settles down. D-Von side slams Dreamer and tags in Bubba but Dreamer gets up and superplexes Bubba down for two. A big belly to back suplex plants Tommy but Gertner throws D-Von by mistake. The referee misses Tommy’s rollup though and a reverse 3D (belly to back from Bubba into a D-Von neckbreaker) plants Tommy.

Dreamer is crotched on the barricade and crushed with a Conchairto but Spike Dudley comes out with a missile dropkick to send the barricade into his brothers. An Acid Drop plants Bubba onto the barricade but the other Dudleys catch him in mid-air to block a dive. Tommy dives on all four of them as he’s up very quickly after that kind of a beating.

Back in and Big Dick hits a chokebomb on Dreamer but Spike saves him from another powerbomb. Beaulah comes in and lays out Gertner but has to leave before the Dudleys lay her out. Spike takes 3D and here’s the Sandman with his Singapore cane. Dreamer is back up and helps clean house, including a double DDT on the Dudleys for the double pin.

Rating: D. This was a mess but Dreamer’s lack of selling drove me crazy. How in the world can he take those kinds of shots to the head but pop right back up a few moments later? Spike coming in made sense and I didn’t mind it as someone had to help neutralize Big Dick, but the lack of selling got annoying in a hurry.

Sandman would be hired by WCW in what seemed like a shot at ECW more than anything else. Here he is in one of his highest profile matches on Nitro, March 22, 1999.

Goldberg vs. Hardcore Hak

Hak hammers him out to the floor to start but Goldberg no sells left hands back inside. Another leverage move sends Goldberg outside again for more punching but Goldberg slaps on a cross armbreaker back in the ring. That goes nowhere so Hak brings in the weapons, which only seem to tick Goldberg off. The Russian legsweep is easily countered and it’s the spear and Jackhammer for the easy pin. This was typical Goldberg.

Here’s one of his few pay per view matches from Great American Bash 1999.

Hak vs. Brian Knobs

I sit corrected: this is a kendo stick match and Knobs is officially part of the First Family. So why did he say he had to think about it? Tony calls this a kendo stick hardcore match because they can’t even keep their stupid gimmicks straight through a single entrance. Brian has promised Mrs. Nasty a birthday win today so let’s get rid of the sticks and have a real hardcore match. So in the span of 90 seconds we’ve gone from kendo stick to kendo stick hardcore to hardcore. I know it doesn’t matter but it sounds like WCW has no idea what they’re doing.

Brian wants to throw away the weapons but Jimmy throws him a trashcan for a cheap shot. Knobs hits him in the head with a trashcan lid and there’s the Pit Stop. Hak stops a charge with two boots to the face and blasts Knobs with the trashcan. It’s ladder time but Knobs comes back with a trashcan shot of his own. He gets decked by the ladder though and Hak hits a slingshot….something onto the ladder onto Knobs.

Hak gets thrown into the ladder in the corner and a few more ladder shots put him down. The advantage only lasts a few seconds as you would expect but Hak’s Swanton only hits ladder. Jimmy holds up a chair but Hak sends him face first into the steel, setting up a kendo stick shot for the pin.

Rating: F. We waited thirteen minutes for the matches to start and this is the best they can give us? The only positive about this is the match wasn’t even six minutes long, which is way better than the usual lengths that we have to sit through. It’s still bad though and I’m tired of seeing these disasters.

Sandman would head back to ECW as soon as he could and appeared on ECW on TNN, November 12, 1999.

Rhyno vs. Sandman

Actually scratch that as we go to Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney in the back who talk about beating up the Baldies. They’re in a bathroom and the Baldies jump out of the stalls to beat them down. You didn’t miss any of the match as that was all during Sandman’s entrance. Rhyno immediately gores him down and Corino steals the cane. A powerslam gets two and Rhyno yells at the fans. Sandman gets sent to the floor and then into the barricade to make it a matching set.

The drunk takes over by sending Rhyno into the steel and they go back inside. Why would Sandy want to go back into the ring? You see new stuff every day. The Heinken-rana (yes that’s really what it’s called) hits but Rhyno comes back with a powerslam for two. Rhyno misses a Swan Dive onto a chair and it’s a White Russian for Corino. Sandman canes Rhyno down and here’s Credible to cane Sandman. The match is thrown out somewhere in here.

Rating: D+. The fans liked it but this was much more of a brawl than a match. This was Sandman’s return from an injury so you can’t really blame him much for being out of rhythm. Then again that might be due to near alcohol poisoning but that goes without saying. There wasn’t much here but it was fun for the live crowd.

And again on the same show, December 10, 1999.

Justin Credible vs. The Sandman

Sandman has what looks like a broom. After a break Sandman is going after the cane but gets caught by a baseball slide to send him into the barricade. Justin rams him into a chair in the ring but Sandman gets a shot in of his own and heads to the floor where he climbs a magically appearing ladder. He climbs the ladder and then climbs back down, making this another pointless ECW sequence.

Justin puts the ladder in the corner between the ropes and due to wrestling law #1, is sent into it himself, getting a two for Sandy. The ladder is placed on the top rope and Justin is launched into it for two. A slingshot legdrop onto the ladder onto Justin gets two again and it’s time for another table. The table is set in the corner but Credible grabs a sleeper out of nowhere. Speaking of out of nowhere, here’s Rhyno to Gore both guys through the table. The White Russian Leg Sweep would seem to get the pin but Lance Storm comes in and hits a missile dropkick on Sandman to drive a chair into his face and give Justin the pin.

Rating: D+. This is a great contrast of two kinds of matches. The world title match had a coherent story to it (mostly) and both guys were hitting almost everything they used. This was a lot messier with the weapons being the focus of the match instead of the wrestlers in the ring, which is almost never a good thing.

Here’s Sandman trying to get another title at Heat Wave 2000.

TV Title: Sandman vs. Rhino

Sandman, the challenger, takes another five minutes to get to the ring. They jaw at each other to start until Sandman literally breaks the cane over Rhino’s head. The champion doesn’t go down and nails Sandman with a clothesline to take over. Sandman comes back with left hands and the fight is already on the floor. We get a piece of barricade thrown into the ring and Sandman throws the monster into the steel.

A top rope hurricanrana puts Rhino onto the barricade for two and Sandman follows it up with a powerslam. The barricade is laid on top of Rhino again and a Swanton Bomb gets two. Now Rhino is sent into the barricade in the corner and the steel is bent in half, drawing out the Network to beat up Sandman.

Spike Dudley returns on a broken leg (injured by Rhino) and Corino takes a 3D with Spike playing Bubba. Rhino Gores Spike down and piledrives him off the apron and through a table. Back in and Sandman blasts Rhino in the head with another Singapore cane but Rhino breaks up his Russian legsweep by sending him into the bent barricade. A piledriver on the barricade is enough to retain Rhino’s title.

Rating: D. This was the best match of their series but only because they kept it contained. It’s still barely wrestling and Rhino deserves far better than this, but that’s Sandman dragging down a match for you. He’s far better when he keeps things simple and away from ladders, and that’s why this worked better.

One final title reign at Guilty As Charged 2001.

ECW World Title: Sandman vs. Steve Corino vs. Justin Credible

Sandman’s entrance is over three and a half minutes. Corino is defending and you have to climb a ladder to pull down the title for the win. The ladder is in the ring to start for a change. Corino, back in trunks, hammers on Sandman to start and dropkicks the ladder into Sandman in the corner. He tries the same thing to Justin but gets the ladder thrown at him instead. Sandman drops an elbow on the ladder on top of Corino as Justin looks for more weapons. He finds a second ladder but stops to punch Sandman for awhile.

Justin rides his ladder down onto the ladder on top of Corino but gets bulldogged down onto a ladder by Sandman. Corino canes Sandman down but the ladder falls down and hits Steve in the back. Justin puts the ladder around his neck and spins it around, only to have Sandman send him into the corner to jar his neck. Corino and Credible put a ladder on its side and use chairs to drive the top between Sandman’s legs.

Corino canes Justin in the corner before throwing Sandman over the top and through a table. Justin is sent face first into a chair with a drop toehold but Sandman is back in now with left hands to the face. Corino puts up a ladder but Sandman comes back with cane shots all around. A ladder hits Steve in the head as Justin has been busted open. Sandman suplexes Corino onto the ladder but heads outside to fight Credible some more.

Justin knocks Sandman down and heads back inside as Corino has bridged a table between the apron and barricade. All three are back in now and the champion sets up a ladder, only to be dropkicked off by Credible. Sandman is thrown through the bridged table and Corino catapults Justin into the ladder in the corner.

Old School Expulsion is countered into That’s Incredible as Francine hits a hurricanrana (work with me here) on Sandman outside. Justin is down as well but Sandman busts out a huge ladder. Credible and Corino climb up but the belt starts moving in a ripoff of King of the Ring 1999. Both guys fall off and go through a table, allowing Sandman to get the belt for the win.

Rating: D+. Somehow I actually liked this a bit. They didn’t bother wasting my time with anything other than insane brawling and it made the match a lot easier to sit through. Sandman winning at least offers some fresh blood to the title scene, even though it’s not the most interesting blood in the world.

The following match actually exists. From TNA Weekly PPV #33 on February 26, 2003.

AJ Styles vs. Sandman

Styles is a cocky heel here. Sandman of course takes his sweet time coming to the ring. AJ gets tired of waiting and dives off the apron to take Sandman down. They head to the mat for some “technical” wrestling, with AJ looking like he knows what he’s doing but Sandman looking drunk. A kick to the chest drops Sandman, but AJ actually wants to bring in some weapons.

Sandman comes to life with some left hands and counters the Raven drop toehold into the trashcan before pelting the can at AJ’s head. It’s table time with Sandman bridging one between the ring and the barricade. AJ fights back and puts Sandman on the table, only to crash through it in a big wipeout. The referee is of course fine with all this, but would you want to see Sandman try to work a regular match?

Back in and AJ dives over some kendo stick shots (nice sequence actually) and superkicks Sandman down. The Clash is countered with a stick shot to the head and Sandman catapults him into a chair in the corner. There goes the referee (like it matters) but Raven comes in to nail Sandman with a chair (which the referee saw), setting up a middle rope Styles Clash for the pin.

Rating: D+. I actually didn’t hate this and got into the story they were going for here: AJ is so good that he can beat anyone at their best match. See, the announcers actually put got that idea over instead cracking jokes that only they find funny or talking about some internet venture that WWE is pushing at the moment. On top of that, the match was actually entertaining with AJ moving around well enough and just letting Sandman do his hardcore stuff.

We’ll jump ahead about a year to TNA Weekly PPV #79 in something a bit more to Sandman’s liking.

CM Punk/Julio Dinero vs. Sandman/Terry Funk

This Funk’s TNA debut and Punk and Dinero (the Gathering) have James Mitchell with them. Sandman gets jumped to start and the brawl is on outside. Dinero and Funk hammer on each other in the ring with Funk hitting something like a Stunner. Sandman misses a charge into the barricade and Funk gets double teamed with Punk calling him an egg sucking dog. That has to be an old Funk insult. All four get back in but Terry misses the moonsault. Now we get hardcore as Sandman just staggers around ringside in a daze. A DDT onto a chair gives Punk two.

Quick pause here. This is one of the things I can’t stand about what hardcore wrestling has done to moves. I remember a Saturday Night’s Main Event where a DDT onto the concrete started a summer long feud between Jake Roberts and Ricky Steamboat. Here, a DDT on a chair gets two in a throwaway move. It really hurts a move like the DDT as well, which used to be devastating but now is something almost everyone uses. Unfortunately it’s hard to reverse and it would take a long time to make the move important again.

A spike piledriver gets the same and I could just copy and paste the previous paragraph a second time. There’s a double suplex for two more and Sandman is knocked to the floor again. Punk misses a hurricanrana and lands on Dinero by mistake, but thankfully he stops rotating when he knows it’s his partner. Sandman comes back in but gets thrown back first onto a stack of chairs. Something like a Demoliation Decapitator through the chair is enough to pin Sandman.

Rating: D. They kept this one short and that’s best for everyone involved. Again though, it gets ridiculous seeing a nearly 60 year old man (or any age for that matter) kicking out of big spots like that. The crowd barely even reacts to them anymore because they’ve seen so many big spots that it’s hard to care about something as tame as a DDT onto a chair. Here’s the thing: that last statement should be ridiculous, but it’s completely true.

Sandman would continue the ECW reunion tour at Hardcore Homecoming 2005.

Sandman vs. Raven

Does this need an explanation? Raven has Meanie and the Musketeer with him for no apparent reason. Raven REALLY needs to go back to the t–shirt and the jeans. Raven makes fun of Sandman’s entrance not being that cool. We’re less than 48 hours from One Night Stand and one of the most awesome entrances of all time, so that’s just very amusing.

Raven is apparently the only wrestler ever to have an action figure in WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. That’s…kind of cool I guess. It would be hilarious to see Raven just sitting around coming up with random thoughts like that. I’ve never heard Raven talk this much and I like it. He picks on Hat Guy also, which has to be the highlight of his career.

Sandman has to beat Musketeer, who is dressed like a guy from 19th century France, to get to Raven. They have a sword vs. cane fight. They did this before I think and it was stupid then too. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey let’s get the match going. Raven hits like 6 shots to Sandman’s head with the cane before the ball shot puts him down.

We get a Johnny Polo chant. Geez has there ever been a guy that changed so much from one gimmick to another? And now we have Sandman in the Musketeer’s hat. Did that gimmick come to Paulie in a dream or something? There’s a ladder on the floor for no apparent reason. The fans that are standing up to see this get a nice SIT THE CENSORED DOWN chant. Sandman comes back and we’re in the ring with the ladder now.

We go back to the 80s with a handful of powder though as we get the DDT for two. That’s one issue I have here: 8 years ago this would have been over for about an hour but here it gets two. The other thing is it’s more or less impossible to have a guy actually be a heel which is ok but it can get a bit annoying though.

Sandman gets the White Russian Leg Sweep and then the Rolling Rock. Meanie comes in and completely misses the moonsault again. Not that Sandman moves, but Meanie just completely misses. They do another and he misses it again. The THIRD one finally hits it. And yep, it’s a complete mess now. Donny Allen, who apparently was the ECW jobber, comes out to beat up Sandman but Mikey runs him off. After offering a beer to Sandman, he turns on him for no apparent reason with the Whippersnapper for the pin.

Rating: D+. It was a wild brawl and that’s all it was supposed to be. Raven outsmarts Sandman again as Joey says and all is right with the world. What more can you really ask for? Both guys get pops though, which is never really that interesting but whatever. It was a fun match so that’s fine.

From two days later at One Night Stand 2005, one of my favorite shows ever.

Dudley Boys vs. Tommy Dreamer/Sandman

Ok, so this is more or less by far and away the most famous and popular part of this show as the match won’t start for about 15 minutes or so. This was the first time the Dudleys had been seen in months on end and they would be gone and in TNA rather soon. Foley sums up a lot very easily: There are guys like me that absolutely love ECW and everything it stood for but at the end of the day consider themselves WWE guys.

Then you have guys like the Dudley Boys that work for WWE but in their hearts are always going to be ECW guys. That sums up this whole show better than anything else could I think. Dreamer gets a pop and a half. You can tell Dreamer is WAY impressed and really in awe of this. The music hits and so begins the most famous entrance in modern wrestling history at least.

Enter Sandman (original, not that Motorhead nonsense) hits and he’s in the crowd. The fans sing the song for his entrance in what is an awesome moment. He’s on his second beer and he’s still on the top floor. Hey he’s at the railing! His entrance is at 3 minutes now. Bubba gets beer spit at him. Tommy and Sandman have beers with CW Anderson and Chris Chetti in the front row before pouring one on two girls’ chest and licking it off, one of which is Elektra.

D-Von dancing to Metallica is funny as all goodness and the cane gets jacked off. Five and a half minutes now. Hand pounds all around…and there’s the BWO. The reaction from Foley is hilarious. Think Ray from Ghostbusters when he says “It’s the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man”. Just cracks me up every time. Match hasn’t started yet. Stevie looks good here actually. Joey sums up the BWO perfectly: “If any gimmick never deserved to make a dime and made a whole boatload of cash, this is it.

And the best is they couldn’t sue us because it was a parody.” For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, the BWO is the Blue World Order: Big Stevie Cool, Da Blue Guy and Hollywood Nova (Simon Dean). They were a parody of the NWO which wound up being ridiculously popular so they ran with it.

Stevie says they’re taking over and kicks Sandman in the face. Let the brawling begin. Kid Kash is here, having just been fired from TNA, marking I believe the first and only time it was mentioned on WWE programming. He does nothing and here are Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten: the Hardcore Chair Swingin Freaks.

They beat up the BWO so the interfering people are fighting the other interfering people. Nova gets the tar chaired out of him. Joey: that’s more painful than having to be Simon Dean on national TV. Everyone brawls in the aisle and Kash has the referee get on all fours for a HUGE front flip onto all of them. Bubba busts out the trashcans. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey there it is, 14 minutes after the Dudleys’ song started. Dreamer has a cheese grated.

The fans chant for Cactus Jack which Foley kind of laughs off. Cheese grater across Dreamer’s head is SICK! Oh he’s busted bad so Bubba rubs it on his face. Joey: Tommy’s skin looks like cabbage in a coleslaw. Foley calls the grater comical. Sometimes I’d pay to be inside that man’s head, just for the chaos that must be in there. Sandman brings in the ladder. We get probably my all time favorite comedy line in wrestling.

Joey says he was going to compare Dreamer wrestling tonight to Gehrig’s last at bat at Yankee Stadium but Gehrig didn’t whip out a cheese grater and start mutilating people with it. And that my friends is why I love wrestling. It’s so insane that to us it makes sense, but when you compare it to something else, it sounds ridiculous. However, in wrestling, there are three words that make things magical: It Could Happen.

That is why I love wrestling: you never know what you could see. Naturally this is just a wild brawl all over the place. Bubba hits a frog splash on Sandy which has to be better than some forms of execution. D-Von takes the White Russian legsweep and we get a double figure four on the Dudleys but the Impact Players run in. Sandman gets a That’s Incredible on barbed wire and here’s Francine.

Beaulah makes her return for the CATFIGHT CATFIGHT CATFIGHT!!! Dreamer saves her and they have their big reunion with Dreamer’s face covered in blood. The Dudleys get DDTed by the two of them, making me smile. WHERE ELSE BUT IN WRESTLING COULD YOU GET THIS? Beaulah gets two on Bubba and she’s hardcore according to the fans. Joey is told in his headset that he can’t say balls, which he makes fun of of course.

Sandman goes through a table for two. 3D on Dreamer, and it’s the old style, not the crap one now. We have another table and here’s Spike who is seeing COLORS! Yep, the table is on fire and there goes Tommy. In a spot that makes me cringe, Tommy’s head is tilted towards the mat and blood just pools up from his head. That’s a great visual. Bubba actually dives on him for the pin.

Rating: A. Oh come on what else do you think this is going to be? This was the huge mess that it was supposed to be with all of the cameos to make things even more entertaining. Sandman’s entrance is one of the best ever and just rocks the whole place. Couple that with the sheer entertainment aspect and the fans going as crazy as they did and it’s a total blast.

Post match (oh like you didn’t expect something else to happen) the Dudleys go after Beaulah and get the tar caned out of them. In a spot that always makes me chuckle, Spike comes back again and Sandman turns around and just canes him again before going back to what he was doing. He looked like he was paying a parking meter or something. Sandman looks at Tommy and says someone….someone…SOMEONE GET ME A BEER! Joey: screw the beer, get him some plasma! “Somebody get me a beer!”

Sandman would be around for some of ECW on Sci-Fi, including this match on October 3, 2006.

Sandman/Sabu vs. Big Show/Matt Striker

So I guess Sabu and Big Show are still feuding somehow. Sabu and Show start with the giant being clean shaven now. That’s kind of a good look for him. Show clotheslines Sabu down and tosses him around with ease. Off to Striker and Sabu gets on offense quickly, hitting a springboard leg lariat and some dropkicks to take over. Sabu is knocked to the floor as we take a break. Back with Show coming in to headbutt Sabu down followed by a suplex which gets two for the tagged in Striker.

Striker kicks Sabu low to knock him to the floor again. Striker hooks a cravate and Sabu is in trouble again. Matt goes up but jumps into a spin kick in a bad looking spot. Sandman finally gets the hot tag and the beating begins. Striker tries to go up but Sandman blasts him with a left hand and the Heinekenrana gets two. The White Russian leg sweep is broken up by Show, who splashes Sandman to give Striker the pin.

Rating: D+. The problem here is that this is just a tag match. Sabu can hang in a match for the most part but Sandman is dull when he can’t use his weapons. This was just your standard tag match which bordered on a squash. Show is being put over stronger than almost anyone I’ve ever seen which is good for him but bad for everyone else.

Somehow he made it to Wrestlemania XXIII.

New Breed vs. ECW Originals

It’s Elijah Burke/Matt Striker/Kevin Thron/Marcus Cor Van vs. Rob Van Dam/Tommy Dreamer/Sabu and for no reason whatsoever this is a regular eight man tag instead of the Extreme Rules match we would get on ECW a few days later. Striker starts with Sabu and Matt is in early trouble. It’s quickly off to Sandman vs. Burke but before Sandy does much he brings in Dreamer. Cor Von hits Dreamer in the back and comes in to pound away a bit.

It’s quickly back to Burke (the New Breed’s leader and more famous as D’Angelo Dinero) for the running knees to the back for two. Thorn comes in to crush Dreamer into the corner and put on a chinlock. Back up and a sitout powerbomb gets two for Thorn and here’s Cor Von again. Burke comes in as well but Dreamer takes them down with a simultaneous neckbreaker/reverse DDT combo. The hot tag brings in Van Dam and there’s the top rope kick to Thorn. Rolling Thunder lands on Striker as everything breaks down. With everyone else on the floor, Van Dam Five Stars Striker for the pin.

Rating: D+. Seriously, why wasn’t this the Extreme Rules match? The whole point of ECW is to be extreme but we got a seven minute tag match which went nowhere at all. The theory was to finally let these guys get on Wrestlemania, but Van Dam had been on it before and won a title here. Nothing to see here at all.

We’ll wrap it up there because the Sandman just made it to Wrestlemania.

This was a rare instance where my opinion on the guy changed the more I thought about him. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Sandman isn’t much of an in ring worker. It was no secret that the guy was horrible in the ring, but that’s not the point. What Sandman was great at was giving the fans a thrill and firing them up more than anyone else in ECW history. Sandman was an attraction, and often times that’s more important than being a good wrestler. Yeah he could be horrible, but the fans were NEVER bored, which is a lot more than you can say for a lot of wrestlers over the years.

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Here’s a one note character who played a solid role in his own right: the Warlord.

The Warlord is best known for his insane physique and was basically there as the resident power guy who looked great and didn’t need to do much else. After getting his start in 1986, here he is in his first pay per view main event at Bunkhouse Stampede.

Bunkhouse Stampede

Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Ivan Koloff, The Warlord (wearing a Lifeguard shirt for no apparent reason), Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, The Barbarian, Animal.

Dusty gets a big entrance of course with all his accomplishments listed. Did I mention he was booking at the time? Seriously, ONLY DUSTY had anything listed about him, including the match he won to qualify here, his world title reigns, his US Title reigns, and his TV Title reigns. No one else got anything but their normal entrances. This could get bad fast. All eight are in there at once. There aren’t any weapons like promised or anything.

Remember, it’s a battle royal in a cage where you have to throw them over the ropes or through the door. My goodness this is idiotic. Apparently it’s unheard of for someone to win three straight Bunkhouse Stampedes. That could be because this is THE THIRD ONE! Wow Dusty lowered some IQs. Everyone is in some screwed up street clothes of some kind and this is just idiotic.

Apparently the referee has to determine if a guy goes over the cage or through the door, since that’s overly complicated I guess. Wow shoving people OVER A CAGE looks stupid. See, when it was a regular battle royal, IT MADE SENSE. Blanchard and Anderson work together of course. Barbarian, Warlord and Koloff are in the same stable mind you so they’ll likely work together. Koloff and Dusty climb the cage due to idiocy.

I’m watching people try to throw PEOPLE over a cage. Does that sound stupid to you or is it just me? How hard would it be to throw someone that is fighting back over a cage wall? Because to me, IT SOUNDS IMPOSSIBLE. Also, there are a lot of people walking around on the top ropes which is just freaking stupid too. No one is out or anything yet.

Arn saves himself from being thrown out the door as I realize how much this sounds like a really bad comedy sketch. Koloff is bleeding. Winner gets half a millon dollars. Not sure if I said that or not but I don’t want to stop the tape long enough to go back and read it. I feel sorry for Ross and Caudle trying to make this sound interesting or intense or whatever it’s supposed to be.

Luger and Dusty just go off as we’re supposed to believe that a guy that is built like Dusty is supposed to be in the same kind of condition as a stallion like Luger. Right. Oh yeah, and keep in mind this whole cowboy southern thing is in NEW YORK CITY. They continue to try to make this sound good and it’s just failing. Wow this was ten days before I was born and 12 before Hogan lost the world title to Andre. Hokey smoke that’s weird to think about.

Still no one out and we’re almost 15 minutes into this. It’s mainly just people in jeans hitting people with belts and boots. Yeah it’s riveting in case you can’t tell. Dusty’s arm is bleeding from being worked over with a belt. Make this stop please. Animal tries to shove Anderson over the top. I want to break this match.

Koloff, like an idiot, although at this time he’s one of two former world champions in there somehow, climbs over the cage to get away from Animal and gets knocked out to take us down to seven. Oh sweet mercy kill me now. So let’s just keep the camera on Koloff FOREVER as we see the EPIC DRAMA of him standing up. Animal and Warlord fight to the door and Warlord gets knocked to the door. Animal gets kicked in the head by Barbarian and it knocks both guys out in a stupid looking spot.

We have Dusty, Luger, Anderson, Blanchard and Barbarian left. Blanchard gets put in the Rack which at least hurts him. Some fan shouts about how gay this is. Thanks for that. Luger takes a Gourdbuster and the Horsemen try to throw him out. Since Luger didn’t have any gourds on him though, he was fine and stays in.

Anderson, Luger and Blanchard fight by the door and they all go out after like three minutes of fighting. Arn at one point stood on the third step and choked Luger. Yeah he deserved to lose. So we have Barbarian vs. Dusty. Any bets on who wins here? Barbarian gets some brass knuckles and pops Dusty with them. Barbarian hits like three of his top rope headbutt finishers but Dusty fights back baby!

They climb to the top rope for the epic move known as the OH DANG THIS MATCH MAKES NO SENSE SO LET’S CLIMB UP SO WE CAN HAVE A REASON TO GET THROWN OVER THE CAGE! Yep, Dusty wins by hitting the elbow to the head and we’re done. Earl Hebner is the referee here but would be in WWF in 12 days for the famous twin angle. Dusty gets a big bronze cowboy boot. Give me a FREAKING BREAK!

We hear about Dusty was considering retiring before this but came back “for the people.” So he was about to leave and came back for the people. So apparently by coming back for the people, he just had to come up with a PPV for himself and put himself over in it. Sure why not.

Rating: F. There was a cage match with a battle royal going on. This was a MASSIVE love letter from Dusty to Dusty. This was all about getting him even FURTHER over and making things look even stupider. Somehow Dusty was the wildcard and the favorite at the same time. He’s US Champion already but was going to retire. I give up. Just a joke of a main event and a show.

Off to the first Clash of the Champions about two and a half months later, with Warlord part of the Powers of Pain with the Barbarian. Their first feud was with the Road Warriors, which produced almost no good matches but some solid brawls.

Road Warriors/Dusty Rhodes vs. Powers of Pain/Ivan Koloff

Koloff and the Powers of Pain are the Six Man Tag Team Champions but the titles aren’t on the line here. This is a barbed wire street fight. Animal (teaming with his regular partner Hawk and Dusty) had his face injured by the Powers (Warlord and Barbarian) and Koloff while doing a weightlifting demonstration so tonight is about revenge. The barbed wire is around the ropes and while it’s not the at the level you might expect today, this was a BIG deal back in 1988.

The heels finally crawl under the ropes but Animal chases Warlord out to the floor to send him into the post. Most of the guys stay clear of the barbed wire and fight in the middle of the ring. Ivan and Dusty send each other into the wire and draw blood but Dusty comes back with right hands to Warlord and a big DDT to Barbarian. Hawk comes off the top with a right hand that mostly misses Warlord before Dusty kicks Barbarian to the floor. Animal powerslams Warlord and Barbarian’s top rope headbutt hits his partner by mistake, giving Animal the pin and revenge.

Rating: D+. The match wasn’t much to see but the barbed wire was a nice touch, even though it wasn’t used all that much. It probably is better that they kept this match short and energetic as none of the six guys were known for their stamina. The Powers of Pain would jump to the WWF less than two months later so this was the blowoff to the feud.

The Powers of Pain were off to the WWF soon after this with one of the first matches taking place at Wrestlefest 1988 on July 31.

Power of Pain vs. Bolsheviks

Seriously we don’t skip this? The Powers of Pain came in as faces but were well on the way to being heels as they and Demolition would do the double switch at Survivor Series. The Powers of Pain have the worst music I can remember in a long time for a team like them. The faces, which feels weird to use to describe the POP, clear the ring very quickly.

Volkoff and Barbarian start us off. Was there ever a time from the early 80s to the late 90s where Barbarian wasn’t employed by one of the big two? He gets a sweet powerslam on Zhukov where he jumps in the air and gets extra momentum. To say this match is slow and plodding is a huge understatement. It’s all power stuff which isn’t something you want to see for a long time.

Warlord gets blasted in the back off the top by Zhukov and STILL manages to win a test of strength. Now THAT is how you no sell something. Barbarian gets beaten down as something more interesting happens to the right of the ring as you see everyone get up to look at it. No clue what it was but I’d rather watch it instead. The stadium is starting to get dark now and after a 30 second comeback which is a stretch also, a powerslam and top rope headbutt on Boris ends it.

Rating: D. I know I’ve been saying that a lot but dang this was boring. They just kind of beat on each other for a bit and then did the finish. These four just didn’t flow well together at all. For the life of me I have no idea why the company thought the POP were a good choice as faces but they eventually got it and switched them and Demolition. Getting there was a long wait though.

Same idea, first Summerslam.

Powers of Pain vs. Bolsheviks

The Powers (Barbarian and Warlord) are still faces here and have the Baron (Von Raschke) with them. Just like in the previous two matches the brawl is on as soon as the good guys hit the ring. The Powers double clothesline Boris Zhukov as Volkoff tries to sneak in for a cheap shot. Barbarian easily catches him coming in and sends him flying until we get down to Barbarian vs. Boris to start things off.

Boris puts his head down and…..something happens (it looked like a choke but it’s not really clear) before it’s off to Warlord for a gutwrench suplex on Zhukov. Both Russians double team Warlord but they can’t even get him down to his knees. Nikolai chokes away before Boris puts on a chinlock. The Russians have a double backdrop broken up and it’s off to Barbarian again. Everything breaks down and it’s a double shoulder followed by a swan dive to Boris for the pin.

Rating: D. Another lame match here but the Powers looked decent. The Baron would be gone in a few weeks as the company wasn’t pleased that a dark character was getting cheered, so they turned Demolition and their evil S&M looking gear face instead. Also did the Russians ever actually win a major match?

Let’s get some better opponents on February 3, 1989 at the Main Event II taping.

Tag Titles: Powers of Pain vs. Demolition

This is from the Main Event II. This was a live event but only the last 2 matches or so (Mega Powers EXPLODE) were shown. The other important thing about this show is that it was aired on February 3, 1989, or my first birthday. Demolition are the champions here and this is part of the feud that spawned out of the double turn at Survivor Series 1988. Axe vs. Warlord to start us off and the champs take over.

They switch off and Smash pounds him down with ease. I could watch Demolition do their pounding people down thing all day. We hear about the handicap match at Mania as Axe is sent to the floor after missing a charge into the corner. There’s a neck crank which is a required move in a power match. A chop sends Axe to the floor. Warlord lowers his head so that Axe can get a forearm in. Well that was nice of him.

Hot tag brings in Smash who hammers away on both guys. He always was good at getting fired up in there. A hot shot gets two on Warlord and everything breaks down. I think I know where this is going. The Powers hit more or less a top rope Hart Attack for two. Fuji gets up on the apron but Axe grabs the cane. It’s not a DQ for some reason but Fuji’s salt throw is good for the double DQ.

Rating: D+. I’ve heard that ending commentary before, I’m sure of it. I must have rented this tape before or watched it and forgotten about it. Either way, this wasn’t bad but it’s your standard house show tag match with these two. Demolition would hold the titles about another 8 months, giving them by far and away the longest tag title reign in company history.

The feud continued at Wrestlemania V.

Tag Titles: Demolition vs. Powers of Pain/Mr. Fuji

Demolition is defending and this is a handicap match. Warlord and Ax get things going with Ax pounding him down quickly. Smash comes in for a double beatdown and it’s off to a neck crank. Back to Ax for the same move and he yells at Fuji a bit. The Demolition beatdown ensues but Warlord powers Ax over to the corner for a tag to Barbarian. He shoves Smash into the corner and is immediately clotheslined down by a fresh Ax. The crowd is dead here.

Barbie gets double teamed by the champions and Ax hooks a neck crank. Back to Smash who gets chopped down before it’s back to Warlord. The advantage lasts for all of three seconds before the Powers finally get some successful cheating going on. Off to Fuji for the first time for some old man offense that is far better than Heenan or Hart at least. Barbarian comes in again and the yet to be named Kick of Fear puts Ax down again for no cover.

The match continues to stay in second gear at best with both teams barely moving at all. Fuji tries the flashiest move of the match by going up top, only to miss Ax. Gorilla: “He hasn’t wrestled in years, just like us.” Jesse: “Us? For Fuji and I it’s been years. For you many years.” Barbarian gets clotheslined down again and it’s off to Smash as everything breaks down. Fuji loads up his salt but hits Warlord by mistake. The Demolition Decapitator is enough to end Fuji and retain the titles.

Rating: D. I’m a fan of Demolition but this was a REALLY weak performance by both teams. The Powers would split soon after this which was the best idea for both guys as they were never going to break through the ceiling with Demolition on top. The title reign would continue to go on for another two months or so, reaching at nearly a year and a half.

Let’s switch things up a bit with this match from October 8, 1989.

Bushwackers vs. Bolsheviks

The Bushwackers jump the Russians to start and it’s a big brawl. After about a minute and a half of brawling we finally get down to Luke vs. Boris. This is more along the lines of a Sheepherders’ match than the traditional stuff you would see from these guys. The vast majority of the commentary is talking about how odd the Bushwackers are which is rather true.

Trongard can’t figure out who is who here. Basically the Russians can’t get anything going at all. It’s another big brawl as the Bushwackers bite legs. Luke gets in trouble though and the Russians take over for the first time. Volkoff is called the Russian Bear in blatant gimmick infringement by Hayes.

This isn’t going anywhere at all as we’re just waiting on the down under comeback to end it. The Russians here are straight up jobbers which says a lot. Somehow Trongard still can’t tell the Bushwackers apart. They look alike but it’s not like they’re identical. Butch comes in for the save when Luke is double teamed but accidently hits Luke. Luke naturally goes after Butch because that’s just what you do.

Hot tag with no heat at all on it brings in Butch who the announcers call Luke. Everything breaks down again of course and we get the dreaded heel miscommunication to put Volkoff on the floor. The Battering Ram takes down Zhukov, followed by the double stomach breaker and we begin the long awesomeness of the Bushwackers’ undefeated streak! Yeah I’m just trying to fill in space here. Trongard says the Bolsheviks are former tag champions which isn’t true. He was rather irritating on commentary for stupid things like that.

Rating: D+. This was a glorified comedy match but for a debut it was ok. The fans seemed to be into them for the most part so it’s hard to complain about them for the most part. This wasn’t horrible but considering this was more or less the peak of the Bushwackers’ abilities by this point, this wasn’t much at all. Not horrible though.

The Powers of Pain were in a major match at the 1989 Survivor Series.

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.

Here are some better opponents on January 15, 1990 in MSG.

The Rockers vs. Powers of Pain

At Madison Square Garden at some point during the Colossal Connection’s title reign, putting this at some point from December 13, 1989 and Wrestlemania 6. Shawn and Barbarian start us off. Jim on commentary never was someone I was into but that accent was always catchy I guess. At least Gorilla is there to help us out. Power vs. speed here of course.

Bearhug to Shawn for a bit followed by Barbarian destroying him with a clothesline. The Rockers do the slam/dropkick to the back of the partner for the cover spot for two. They hammer away on Barbarian but can’t get anything going due to his power game. Double superkick can’t get him down but a double clothesline cane. The Rockers clear the ring to a nice response.

Warlord comes in and crushes the back of Shawn with big pounding shots. SLICK spot as Warlord has Shawn up for a powerbomb and Marty gets a dropkick to his back so Shawn can snap off a rana for two. Nice move. Off to Marty who takes the powerbomb instead. No save from Shawn as you can see the seeds being planted for the heel turn a mere year and a half later.

BIG backdrop has Marty in trouble. Into the ropes again with Warlord LAUNCHING Marty into the air so high that my eyes got very big in shock. That was VERY impressive. And you can tell I mean that because I’m capitalizing words. Barbarian in now and the beating continues. The Rockers were so awesome at selling it was unreal. On the floor after a big boot, Marty takes a cane to the back from Fuji.

Somersault off a clothesline by Marty as the selling is awesome again. Marty hits Warlord a few times and it gets absolutely no reaction at all. Back to the bearhug as Marty is in big trouble. Finally Marty gets a shot off the middle rope to….do nothing at all since a few seconds later he jumps into a powerslam that looked SICK.

Second rope elbow misses as always and there’s the hot tag to Shawn after some stumbling around to find the right corner. Marty must have gotten the Columbian stuff tonight. The crowd gets way into this very quickly. Everything goes insane with a bunch of near falls off double team moves from the Rockers. Marty is whipped into Barbarian to take them both down. Fuji trips up Shawn and an elbow ends this. Wow nice way to have your profiled guys look weak.

Rating: B. Classic big man vs. little man tag match here and it worked rather well. The Rockers could crank it up with the best of them and they certainly did that here. The Powers were a good big man team that did exactly what they were supposed to do in making smaller teams like the Rockers look like big threats. Also if you ever want to see some great selling, take a look at this match with the Rockers looking incredible in that area.

The team would split soon after this and we’ll pick things up with Warlord as a singles guy at Summerslam 1990.

Warlord vs. Tito Santana

Piper makes Mexican jokes as Tito grabs a headlock. Warlord easily shoves him down and Piper suggests going for a taco. Three straight dropkicks send Warlord out to the floor for a consultation with Slick. Back in and Tito pounds away but is launched to the outside on a kickout. Warlord rams Tito’s back into the post as Piper does a horrible Slick impression. Back in and Warlord pounds on the back but Tito fires off a quick clothesline and right hands. The flying forearm hits out of nowhere but Warlord gets his foot on the ropes. Back up a few seconds later and a powerslam abruptly ends Tito.

Rating: D+. Tito was a jobber to the stars at this point and made Warlord look as good as he could have, but the match was nothing special at all. Warlord just wasn’t all that good other than having muscles on top of muscles. Tito also jobbed to Barbarian at Wrestlemania so they had an idea of what they were using him for at this time.

Then he would be in the Grand Finale Match of Survival at Survivor Series 1990.

Hulk Hogan/Tito Santana/Ultimate Warrior vs. Ted DiBiase/Visionaries

If you can’t see the ending of this coming, just go click on something else now. Oddly enough, Hogan comes out before Tito. Tito and Warlord start and a forearm ends Warlord in less than 30 seconds. To update a reference for 2012, Tito is apparently the Ronda Rousey of the WWF. Roma immediately powerslams Tito and brings in DiBiase. My goodness a 20 minute Santana vs. DiBiase match would freaking rock. Tito misses another forearm and a hot shot gets the pin for DiBiase.

Hogan comes in and beats the tar out of DiBiase for a bit before ducking his head too early. A kick to Hogan’s face slows him down and it’s off to Hercules and almost immediately Roma for a top rope forearm for two. Back to Hercules who pounds away on Hulk even more, as does DiBiase. The Powerplex hits Hogan and has basically no effect. Roma is immediately pinned by a clothesline and it’s 3-2.

Martel comes in to beat on Hogan but gets kicked in the face. Off to Warrior who fires off a bunch of kicks in the corner and backdrops Martel. Rick tries to hit him in the head and boy are you really that dumb? Hogan knocks Martel to the floor and Rick walks off for the countout. Hogan beats on DiBiase a bit and there’s the legdrop. Warrior beats Hercules with the splash about 40 seconds later to win.

Rating: D. What in the world was the point of this? I mean……am I watching a house show? These are the kind of matches you hear about at the end of shows to send the fans home happy, not to main event a PPV. It was clear that this show wasn’t needed and that something had to be done.

Warlord’s biggest singles feud was with the British Bulldog, with one of the top matches taking place at Wrestlemania VII.

Davey Boy Smith vs. Warlord

This is about whether or not Davey can break the full nelson. We start with our standard power stuff as they ram into each other a few times, only to have Bulldog knock Warlord out to the floor. A crucifix doesn’t work for Bulldog so Warlord drops some elbows for no cover. We hit the bearhug but Bulldog punches out, only to get caught in a hot shot to keep him on the mat.

A BIG belly to belly (kind of) puts Bulldog down but again Warlord won’t cover. We hit the chinlock until Bulldog fights up and hits a dropkick to send Warlord into the corner. Punches in said corner can’t drop Warlord but a cross body is finally enough to get him off his feet. Warlord counters a piledriver but Bulldog counters the counter into a sunset flip for two. Bulldog misses a charge into the corner and Warlord hooks the full nelson. It looks like all hope is lost but the fingers aren’t locked. Bulldog finally flips out of it and hooks the powerslam out of nowhere for the win.

Rating: C+. This would be filed under the category of “shocking the world” as it was actually a pretty solid match. Bulldog would get a lot better all of a sudden while Warlord would fall further down the card than he already was. This was way better than I was expecting and it turned into a pretty decent power match.

Let’s try really screwing things up now on April 24, 1991.

Warlord vs. Jim Neidhart

Same show but later in the card. Yes, people were charged money to watch this match. Someone actually booked this match too. Someone thought this was the best choice of the talent on the roster. What does that tell you about WWF in 91? Warlord is more or less Chris Masters with an evil heel gimmick and a better look. LONG feeling out sequence to start as we kill some time here.

I shudder to think how long they could give this match given how long the tape is and how few matches were listed. Anvil grabs his foot and we do nothing for a bit longer. We hit the floor and do nothing at all of note. This is painfully boring to put it nicely. We get an I Am The Walrus reference from Roddy for the very old school people in the audience tonight.

The boring levels rise up as Warlord throws on a bearhug. His arms are deformed from so many roids in him. And now it’s a chinlock because we just haven’t killed off the crowd enough yet. This doesn’t sound too bad, but keep in mind that about 20 seconds pass between each move. We’re at well over 12 minutes and I haven’t left out anything but forearm smashes from Warlord.

Anvil starts his comeback, which of course is comprised of punches, forearms and clotheslines. Vince says Cowabunga for no apparent reason but it’s TMNT time (well we are in London after all) so all is right with the world. A splash misses for Neidhart and Warlord takes over again. And then a rollup from nowhere ends it for Anvil.

Rating: F+. This was FIFTEEN MINUTES LONG. Do I need to explain why this was a bad match? Well I might as well anyway. This was nothing at all of note and was just boring as all goodness to say the least. They TOTALLY clashed and Warlord was horrible on his best day, so this was just not going to be good at all. Absolutely awful and there’s no other way to put it.

Back to a tag match at Summerslam 1991.

Ricky Steamboat/British Bulldog/Texas Tornado vs. Warlord/Power and Glory

Steamboat is just The Dragon here, complete with what looks like a lizard man costume and breathing fire. The heels get the jobber entrance and have Slick with them. Steamboat and Roma get things going as Gorilla is listing off the rest of the card. Roma slams him down and mostly misses a dropkick before posing. Paul goes to the middle rope but dives into the armdrag and Steamboat cranks on the arm even more. Ricky hits a much better dropkick to put Roma in the corner for a tag to Hercules who gets caught in some armdrags of his own.

Off to Tornado and the fans go nuts as he rams Herc’s head into the buckle. Ten right hands to the head in the corner have Hercules in even more trouble but it’s off to Warlord vs. Bulldog which was a decent power feud. Bulldog hits the suplex for two and it’s off to Steamboat for a top rope chop to the head. Warlord blocks a monkey flip though and it’s back to Roma with a suplex of his own for two. Three straight backbreakers have Steamboat in even more trouble before it’s back to Hercules for a gorilla press.

Steamboat starts fighting back but gets caught in a big hotshot to put him down. Here’s Warlord again but he dives into two feet from Steamboat, allowing for the tag off to Tornado. The Texan cleans house but makes a blind tag to Bulldog who hits a cross body. That plus the Tornado Punch to Warlord is good for two as everything breaks down. Bulldog powerslams Roma down and Steamboat adds the high cross body for the pin.

Rating: C+. Nothing wrong with this as it was a basic six man tag to fire up the crowd. Everyone looked fine and the crowd was WAY into the smark god known as Ricky Steamboat. The heels were all about to be gone from the company with only Warlord making it to 1992.

And another elimination tag at Survivor Series 1991.

Team Ric Flair vs. Team Roddy Piper

Ric Flair, Ted DiBiase, The Mountie, The Warlord

Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Virgil

Roddy was Flair’s first feud in the company as not only did you know the matches would be good, but the promos would be awesome too. Bret was feuding with Mountie over the IC Title, Smith was feuding with Warlord over who was stronger and Virgil was feuding with DiBiase because who else was he going to feud with?

Flair has the REAL World Title with him here, which is mosaiced but if you know your titles, you can see a WWF Tag Team Title, which looks really weird if you’re in the arena (if you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, the short version is Flair was NWA Champion, left the NWA, wasn’t paid back for the deposit he put down on the belt, brought it to the WWF, got sued, and couldn’t use the title in the angle they were doing anymore so they would substitute in another belt which was censored in storyline.)

Big reaction for Bret, who has finally split from Neidhart and is IC Champion as of Summerslam. DiBiase starts for his team against Piper which is a pretty awesome match. No managers are allowed at ringside this year but Sherri is there anyway. Flair sneaks in and blasts Piper in the back to give Ted an early advantage. Piper atomic drops Ted and Sherri comes in to choke him which somehow isn’t a DQ. Piper kisses her and punches DiBiase to take over.

Sherri is sent to the back and Roddy brings in Smith. The good guys work over the arm of DiBiase with Virgil of all people getting the biggest pop. After all four go in they start going around again with all four getting in another set of shots on the arm. Bret stays in but misses a knee in the corner to put himself in trouble. They trade near falls before Bret takes him right back down by the arm.

DiBiase hiptosses him down and wisely tags in Flair. Bret starts with some of his favorite moves before tagging in Davey Boy to slingshot Flair into the corner. Piper wants in but Flair stops the tag. There’s the gorilla press to Flair and the tag to Piper, drawing a BIG pop from the crowd. Piper goes nuts with punches, knocking Flair to the floor where we get a Flair Flop.

Back inside and it’s off to Warlord who Piper wants to try a test of strength against. Piper is just playing though and brings in Smith for the big power match. Smith hits some shoulder blocks but misses a charge and it’s off to Mountie. Bret tags in and Mountie immediately hits the floor. Instead here’s DiBiase who gets elbowed off the middle rope for two. Ted and Bret hit head to head and both guys are down.

Mountie is willing to get in there now but it’s back to Davey instead. Smith gorilla presses Mountie and pumps him about three times before slamming him down for no cover. Off to Flair who chops away at the Bulldog which doesn’t work at all. DiBiase and Flair try a double team but get double clotheslined instead. There’s the powerslam to Mountie but he’s not legal. Flair comes off the top with a shot to the back of Smith’s head for the pin and the elimination. Both guys were legal too.

Piper immediately charges in but Flair tags DiBiase back instead. Flair comes in to face a downed Piper but Ric is put in the Figure Four almost immediately. Off to Mountie vs. Virgil and Mountie can’t get a tag out from anyone, because everyone is afraid of Virgil. I can’t say I blame them. He might tell them about how great he is. Flair comes in and has zero luck so it’s DiBiase vs. Virgil again. Ted powerslams him down and it’s immediately back to the Warlord.

Virgil gets sent to the floor and Flair sends him into the steps, with Virgil doing an awful job of pretending to slam into them. The full nelson goes on but everything breaks down and Bret comes off the top to take out Warlord, giving the illegal Piper the pin to tie us up at 3. Piper vs. DiBiase now before Virgil is quickly tagged in. Virgil slaps the Million Dollar Dream on DiBiase but Ted sends him into the buckle to escape.

Here’s Flair again with a belly to back supelx before it’s back to Mountie. Every remaining heel takes their shots on Virgil which is likely the best possibly option. I mean, do you want VIRGIL getting the hot tag? Flair covers him for two and puts his feet on the ropes because that’s what Flair does. DiBiase comes in and ducks his head, only to get caught by a swinging neckbreaker. There’s the hot tag to Piper who no sells everything Flair throws at him. Everything breaks down and Flair is sent to the floor. That’s important because the referee disqualifies EVERYONE in the ring, but Flair was outside and is the sole survivor.

Rating: B. Gah this was going AWESOME until the pretty lame ending. Having Flair be the sole survivor is a smart move though as it makes the fans hate him even more. This was a GREAT setup though and was on pace to be a classic before the ending. To be fair though, at the pace they were going the match would have been an hour long if they were going to do a full version. Still though, what we got was very good.

Here’s the final showdown with Bulldog at This Tuesday In Texas.

Warlord vs. British Bulldog

This is more or less based around Warlord having a full nelson as a finisher and saying no one can break it. Smith says he can. That’s it. Smith was just ridiculously awesome at this point so I’m sold pretty easily here. Naturally there’s not a word said about the match at first and it’s all about the Savage vs. Roberts thing, which is understandable. For some reason there’s a ton of times here where there’s no talking from the commentators which is never a good thing. It’s just dead air.

At least once they got done talking about the angle they focus on the match for the most part. I can understand talking about the angles a lot, but there’s no excuse for ignoring a match entirely. We’ve mainly got a power match here, but in this case it’s working. It’s odd to have Warlord go this long in a match and also against a guy that uses the same style he has. He’s managed by Harvey Whippleman.

That’s a bit early for him I thought but whatever. Hey it’s a power vs. power match and we have a bearhug. Who could have seen that coming? We’re about five minutes in and Heenan insists it’s over ten. I love hyperbole in wrestling. Usually the power vs. power doesn’t work but Smith makes up for it by having the wrestling ability to balance things out. That’s what made him so solid in the ring.

He was a hybrid wrestler that could do both styles and it allowed him to have decent matches with a lot more wrestlers than a guy like Warlord for example did. Warlord gets the Full Nelson but can’t get the hands in. His hands are on the side of the head so in essence this move is doing nothing at all.

That makes the escape look completely stupid. Smith makes the comeback and gets a decent vertical suplex which is borderline very impressive. From out of almost nowhere, Smith gets a crucifix for the quick pin. That was different if nothing else.

Rating: B-. Given what they had to work with here, this came off pretty well. Smith winning with a wrestling move instead of a power move was a nice little twist in there as everyone was expecting it to end in a power thing, but instead he does the exact opposite and it works. That’s a solid bit of psychology and it worked like a charm here. This might be Warlord’s longest match ever and it worked pretty well. Smith carried the majority of this, but not all of it.

Warlord would head over to Japan for the WAR promotion in 1993, including this match on December 15, 1993.

John Tenta vs. Warlord

A lockup doesn’t get either guy anywhere and neither does a Warlord headlock. Shoulder blocks have no effect either so Earthquake jumps up and down a bit. Warlord slams him down to a BIG pop and even the ring announcer says something. Now the shoulder block works, but Earthquake one ups him with a dropkick. This is a really slow match for the most part. An elbow drop gets two on Warlord but he actually suplexes Earthquake down in a very impressive display of strength.

Earthquake heads to the floor where he drives Warlord into the post. Warlord avoids a charge up against the post but it doesn’t seem to hurt the bigger guy all that much. Instead Earthquake comes back with some splashes in the corner and a powerslam followed by the Earthquake Splash….for two?

The fans are into Warlord now but it’s off to a bearhug to slow him down. Warlord fights out with right hands and takes Quake down with a big shoulder. A nice belly to back drops Earthquake but he’s too fat to slam. Earthquake gets two off a legdrop before getting the pin off a running clothesline and covering the shoulders with all of his weight.

Rating: C-. This was getting going but the ending really felt like a screeching halt. It’s so strange to see the Warlord getting face reactions after so many years as a heel in the WWF. Earthquake was the kind of guy that could make a crowd care about his really basic offense and he showed it here really well.

We’ll wrap it up with a one off match on Nitro, January 1, 1996.

Super Assassins vs. Sting/Lex Luger

The Super Assassins are more commonly known as the Powers of Pain but in masks. Sting takes a minute to come out. Craig Pittman comes up to the announce table again and asks Mongo to be his manager for no apparent reason. Nice to see this getting more attention than a pair of former world champions that had a major issue at the biggest show of the year.

Colonel Parker manages the masked dudes. They have yellow masks and black shirts and pants. They’re as generic as they sound. And now let’s talk about Hogan and Flair because this match still means nothing at all. Big powerbomb by the one we’ll say is Barbarian because I can’t tell them apart. A top rope headbutt confirms my guess. Hot tag to Luger and the Rack ends the Barbarian soon thereafter. Sting adds a Scorpion Deathlock for fun. They would get the tag titles soon.

Rating: D+. Glorified and extended squash with the wrestling being a backdrop to the talking to Pittman and the build up for Hogan/Flair. Notice that they have THREE angles being talked about here: Sting and Luger, the Pittman thing and the main event. This is a good look at the way the whole company would look for years. The problem is that it would stop being interesting and start being bad. Match was just a step above a squash.

Warlord was watchable when he had a talented enough guy to get in there with, but trying to have him carry something would be a disaster. He was a power lunkhead but was a great option for an enforcer role. The Powers of Pain were a solid pair of guys for a team like the Rockers to to bounce off of and then beat with a rollup but not much more beyond that. On top of that, he wasn’t around all that long as he debuted in 1986 and was gone from the WWF by early 1992. Still though, he was memorable enough and that’s more important than being good at times.

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Here’s a guy who was around for a long time and stayed at a high level throughout his run: Rick Martel.

Rick got his start in Canada in 1972 when he was about 16. That’s a bit too young for most mainstream companies so we’ll jump ahead to a show in Australia with Martel challenging for the NWA World Title. I’m not sure what date this took place, but it aired on a WWF MSG show on December 19, 1977.

NWA World Title: Harley Race vs. Rick Martel

Martel is about 21 here and the announcers are Australian. Crowd is INSANE here and we keep hearing the announcer say World Championship Wrestling which is weird as all goodness. The turnbuckles are HUGE. This is just odd to see but rather fun. A hiptoss and backdrop into an arm drag and armbar warrants a slow motion replay in the middle of the match.

This announcer is really good. No clue who he is but he’s quite engaging. Race was fairly awesome at this point as he was still young at 34. Martel gets out of a hammerlock to a nice pop. He’s quite popular here. I wonder if he has an enormous schwanzstück (rep to whoever gets this reference first).

Race gets a nice gutwrench suplex to take over again but Martel starts the comeback. The punches are let loose but Martel misses a cross body off the middle rope and Race hits a British Bulldogesque delayed suplex to get the pin. It was a very different time back then and winning with a move like that was perfectly acceptable at this point.

Rating: B-. Very fun little match here as Martel did his thing but Race just outsmarted him to get the pin. Race in his prime is a sight to behold as he really is as good as he’s made up to be. I’m not a big Martel guy but this was a good match and the crowd being very hot helped a lot. Who would have expected that from Australia?

Off to the WWF full time and we’ll pick things up on October 13, 1981.

Tag Titles: Tony Garea/Rick Martel vs. Mr. Fuji/Mr. Saito

This is from 81 and Garea/Martel are still champions. In Philly here and Albano is managing the challengers. Fuji vs. Martel to start and Fuji gets tossed around a lot. Off to Saito after Fuji can’t do anything with either champion. Martel hits a body press for two. Back to the armbar and Fuji is back in trouble already. Off to Garea who stays on the arm. The challengers finally get in some shots to take over.

Fuji does his usual cheating and down goes Garea to a chop. Back to Saito who chokes away. It’s weird hearing Pat Patterson with that thick accent on commentary. Garea gets in a knee but can’t make the tag due to Fuji. There’s a nerve hold and the challengers do the switch without the tag. Garea gets in a few shots but a dropkick misses, meaning no tag.

Back to Saito who gets two off a slam. Middle rope knee gets the same. Saito cranks on a front facelock and Martel finally slaps and runs in for some help. It actually works and Garea makes the hot tag. House is cleaned and everything breaks down. Albano slips Fuji the salt as Martel goes up. Fuji throws it at Martel in mid air and Martel’s cross body is rolled through for the titles to Japan.

Rating: B-. Solid old school style tag match which worked quite well. The ending spot looked great with that dive being timed perfectly. It makes sense that Martel is in trouble so he couldn’t hold Saito down as well. Vince morphed into Mr. McMahon as he ranted on the end of that too.

Martel would head to the AWA as the new top guy, including a year and a half long reign as the World Champion. Here he is in a six man tag at Super Sunday 1983.

Jesse Ventura/Blackjack Lanza/Ken Patera vs. High Fliers/Rick Martel

The High Fliers are Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell and they’re the tag champions. The heels (Ventura’s team) has Heenan managing them. Martel vs. Patera gets us going. Patera tries to draw him into the corner but Martel is BRILLIANT (Gene Okerlund said so) and wants to keep it in the middle. This is power vs. speed and Martel snaps off some armdrags. Martel takes him down and works on, say it with me, the arm.

Off to Brunzell for some fresh arm work and an atomic drop. Back to the arm and it’s off to Ventura, who is called Mr. V. here. Brunzell grabs the arm and it’s off to Gagne who comes off the middle rope onto the arm again. Ventura easily picks him up and carries Gagne to the corner and brings in Lanza. The size difference here is huge but it doesn’t last long as Martel comes in and is a house of fire.

Martel drags Lanza into the corner but does it so slowly that Ventura falls into the ring from reaching so much. Patera comes back in as does Brunzell and the power man pulls the Flier into the corner. Off to Ventura for a bearhug. Things break down and Gagne comes in to beat up everyone. Martel comes in to help and the Heenan Family is in trouble. Gagne puts a sleeper on Patera but Ventrua makes the save.

It settles down with Lanza and Gagne and Lanza drives his knuckles into the side of Gagne’s head ala Sgt. Slaughter in 1991. Ventura comes in and hits a backbreaker for two. Gagne gets the tag to Martel but the referee doesn’t see it. I’ve always loved that sequence for some reason. Off to Patera for the bearhug again and Gagne is in big trouble. Gagne escapes with a kind of Thesz Press and sends Lanza into the corner and makes another hot tag to Martel.

Rick misses a dropkick and it’s back to Patera for a suplex for two as Brunzell makes the save. Lanza interferes to break up a potential hot tag and comes in legally, only to get kicked in the face so we can get the actual hot tag to Brunzell. He hits his signature dropkick and puts on a Figure Four, called an Indian Deathlock. Everything breaks down and Heenan gets up on the apron, only to get knocked back down again.

Things settle down again and it’s Brunzell backdropping Patera to set up another Deathlock attempt. Patera breaks it up and everything breaks down again. Somewhere in there Patera pins Brunzell as it’s possible that there was a foreign object sent in there by Heenan when he was on the apron.

Rating: B-. This isn’t something that everyone is going to like but I was getting into it by the end. They had every face in there getting beaten down at different times as well as a lot of hot tags. The fans were staying in this too and it was by far and away the best match of the night so far. The High Fliers were exactly what their name said and it worked pretty well for the most part. Good match here.

And a title defense at SuperClash 1985.

AWA World Title: Rick Martel vs. Stan Hansen

Martel is defending. This is the next to last match thank goodness. Hansen jumps him to start and they go to the floor as the bell rings. Back in and it’s all Hansen. If I understood right this has a 25 minute time limit. The midgets got 45. Martel sunset flips him for two. Hansen takes him to the mat and chokes away before it’s a big brawl. They go to the floor and Hansen hits him with some chairs and it’s a DQ in about two and a half minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? We’ve had eleven other matches and the WORLD TITLE MATCH gets two and a half minutes? You couldn’t cut one of the six men matches down? I’m done.

We’ll jump back to the WWF where most of his fame comes from, including this opening match from 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.

Tom Zenk left the company over a contract issue so Martel would be paired with Tito Santana to form Strike Force. Here they are challenging for the Tag Team Titles on October 27, 1987.

Tag Titles: Strike Force vs. Hart Foundation

I’ve actually never seen this. Gene pops up to say the titles change hands. Nice guy that bald one. This is on Superstars and is more or less a token title defense. Martel vs. Bret to start as we keep things Canadian. Double elbow and down goes Bret as Tito goes to that armbar which he likes apparently. O’Connor Roll is countered as Tito’s head is rammed into the mat rather hard.

Neidhart comes in and they slug it out. Surprisingly enough it’s about a draw and cheating gives the champions the advantage. Backbreaker by Bret gets two. I couldn’t think of a way to say “gets two” where both words started with two. Darn the luck. Vince says it would be a shame if this ended in controversy. It’s kind of interesting to know what we know about him now and wonder if he’s saying “screw this up and you’re fired.”

More double teaming puts Tito on the floor and gets two back in the ring. Tito almost gets the tag but Bret breaks it up in a great heat drawing move. The move that Demolition would use as their finisher gets two. Bret misses an elbow and this is Santana’s chance. I hope he’s a better wrestler than guitar player. Never been a fan of him. That joke failed didn’t it?

No tag yet as this is pure 80s tag formula. Tito reverses an Irish whip (from a Canadian to a Mexican of all things) and Bret gets to do his chest first bump into the corner. Double tag and the crowd is on fire, much like Martel. Cross body gets two on Neidhart as everything breaks down. Double slam to Anvil and the Boston Crab goes on Neidhart who gives up almost immediately and we have new champions to a big old pop.

Rating: B-. Standard 80s tag formula here but good talent and timing plus a very hot crowd are enough to make this a pretty solid outing. Also I always liked Strike Force so that helps a lot. They would hold the belts until Mania, and yet they were transitional champions. This is in October, meaning their reign was almost six months. Nice transitional reign no?

Here’s a title defense at Saturday Night’s Main Event XI.

Tag Team Titles: British Bulldogs vs. Hart Foundation

The Harts are defending and this is 2/3 falls due to the Harts using crooked referee Danny Davis to win the titles back in January. Tito Santana, Danny Davis and Jimmy Hart are all at ringside but the Bulldogs have their actual bulldog Matilda with them to go after Jimmy, sending him running for cover. Davey and Bret get things going with Smith flipping around to grab a wristlock. Bret counters into a headlock, only to take a monkey flip to put him back down.

They start to run the ropes but Hart buries a knee in Smith’s ribs to take over again. Off to Neidhart to slam Davey’s head into the mat. Hart sends him into the buckle but misses a charge, allowing for the hot tag off to Dynamite Kid. Things speeds up and the snap suplex gets two on Bret. Everything breaks down and Tito chases Davis around ringside as the Harts double team Dynamite for the DQ to end the first fall.

The second fall begins after a break with the Harts still double teaming Dynamite. A modified version of what would become known as the Demolition Decapitator (backbreaker/middle rope elbow combination) gets two but Dynamite comes back with a headbutt, drawing a nice flow of blood. Davey chases Bret and Davis around ringside before Bret nails Dynamite from behind to keep the advantage.

Hart misses a charge into the ropes though and Davey comes back in off the hot tag to clean house. A vertical suplex gets two on Neidhart but he comes back with a shot to the ribs to stop Davey cold. The Harts collide though and Santana nails Davis again and Davey throws Dynamite on top of Neidhart for the pin and the titles.

Or not actually as there’s an obscure rule that says if one fall in a 2/3 falls match is a disqualification, the title can’t change hands. This is the first and only time this rule is referenced on this show. Remember that for a show in about two years. I’ll give them this though: the fans went insane for the near title change and their anger at the surprise ending was great.

Rating: B-. This was a solid match with a screwy ending, which would be the case far more times than it should have been. These teams had excellent chemistry together due to knowing each other so well from their Stampede Wrestling days. The Harts are starting to dominate the division and establish themselves as one of the best teams of all time.

The team lost the belts at Wrestlemania IV to Demolition. Martel would have to take off the better part of a year due to an injury, eventually coming back to team with Santana for one match, only to turn on him that day. Here they are in a six man tag at Summerslam 1989.

The Rockers/Tito Santana vs. Fabulous Rougeau Brothers/Rick Martel

This should be awesome. Martel teases getting in there against Tito to start but sends Jacques in instead. As is his custom, Jacques requests a handshake but sneaks in some choking on Tito instead. The Rockers come in without tags and the good guys hit stereo dropkicks to send the French Canadians to the floor. Things settle down to Marty vs. Jacques with the latter going to the middle rope and head faking Marty, but Jannetty is faking the head fake and punches Jacques on the way down.

The advantage is short lived though as Ray Rougeau gets in a knee to the back from the apron and a kind of superkick to put Marty down. Off to Martel for right hands and some dancing followed by a cartwheel out of the corner. Marty is tired of the dancing and dropkicks Martel down but Rick runs away from the charging Tito. Instead it’s Santana putting a headlock on Ray before getting two off a clothesline.

Much like his brother did earlier, Jacques interferes for Ray and the Rougeaus take over on Santana with a double back elbow. Martel comes in to pound on the weakened Tito like a true weasel. Rick stomps away against the ropes as the fans are getting angrier and angrier at the Model. Jacques comes in again and hooks a front facelock to block the hot tag. Back to Martel but Tito fires off right hands to send the crowd into a frenzy. Jacques quickly pulls Tito’s hair to break it up but Tito gets a sunset flip for two.

Rick puts Tito down with a backbreaker and Ray hooks a Boston crab to stay on the weakened back. Back to Jacques for an abdominal stretch with a helping hand from Martel on the apron. Rick comes in again to break up another hot tag attempt and Ray stops Tito’s comeback just like Jacques did earlier. Tito hits a quick cross body for two and the Rockers finally come in to break up the interference. Ray comes in to keep Tito down but Jacques’ flying knee hits his brother, FINALLY allowing Tito to make the hot tag to Shawn.

Martel tries to hide in the corner but gets caught in a huge backdrop to send him running even further. A dropkick and a suplex put Martel down and the top rope right hand gets two as everything breaks down. Tito hits the flying forearm to send Martel to the floor and Marty rolls up Jacques, only to have Martel slide back in and blast Jannetty with a right hand, giving Jacques the pin.

Rating: B. Take six guys and two feuds, give them fifteen minutes in front of a hot crowd and witness the awesome. That’s exactly what happened here and the crowd got WAY into it, especially the Martel vs. Santana stuff. Those two just started feuding a few months before this and people were drooling to see Tito get his revenge. Really solid old school six man tag here which worked exceptionally well.

Off to a singles match on March 19, 1990.

Bret Hart vs. Rick Martel

This should be awesome. Martel is a model by this point. A kid in a Mario shirt gets Bret’s glasses. Lucky twerp. Martel is incredibly muscular here, far more than I ever remember him being otherwise. Technical/can you top this stuff to start us off as you would expect. Small package (there’s a steroids joke in there somewhere) gets two for Bret. After Martel hits the floor for a bit we’re back at it.

Bret works on the arm to waste a bit of time. Gorilla thinks neither guy has any trouble getting a date for Saturday night. Given the stories Bret told in his book I’d agree with Monsoon there. This armbar goes for a good while. For no adequately explained reason Hillbilly wants to know what place in Europe is like Kentucky. This goes on for a bit and we hear about Granny’s Possum Pie. The Rock’s Pie song is stuck in my head now. Thanks guys.

Martel takes over and rams Bret into the apron and does some jumping jacks. Gorilla says we’ve been at this over ten minutes. More like five but who’s counting? Martel works on the back and ribs. Abdominal stretch goes on so Gorilla gets a chance to complain about it. I need to go back and watch some of his matches to see if he ever used it.

Bret fights back with an atomic drop. I’m not sure if this has been good or not. It’s kind of an odd match in that sense. Bret gets the Five Moves of Doom going (Gorilla says the leg sweet is a neckbreaker oddly enough. Who am I supposed to believe now???) for a bunch of two counts. They hit the floor and then go right back in. Bret spreads Martel’s legs but there’s no Sharpshooter at this point so it’s just a stomp. They fight on the floor and it’s a time limit…at 12 minutes? Apparently so, which is kind of stupid when you could have gone with a double countout but whatever.

Rating: C+. The time thing is really weird here and Bret not having a finishing move hurt him a lot. The Sharpshooter was nearly two years away at this point so that certainly wasn’t an option yet. Fun match but it never got to the point that it should with these two. Also the ending was kind of weird. More good than bad though, as there wasn’t much bad at all.

Off to the opener of Wrestlemania VI.

Rick Martel vs. Koko B. Ware

Martel is now a model and THE RING CARTS ARE BACK!!! Rick jumps Koko to start things off and the beating is on fast. Koko comes out of the corner with a cross body for two and a dropkick to stagger Martel even more. Martel heads to the floor, only to be dragged right back in. He sends Koko to the floor though and things slow down a bit. Rick pounds away on the back and hits a middle rope shot to the back. A backbreaker looks to set up the Boston Crab but Koko makes the rope. Some rams into the corner don’t work because Koko is black you see. A middle rope cross body misses and this time the Crab ends Ware.

Rating: D+. Not much of an opener here but it was decent enough I guess. This would have been a dark match today I would guess. The interesting thing here is what you got on the clipped version. On that edition, the first Boston Crab was clipped to the ending of the second one. See how dangerous that stuff can be?

Martel’s next major feud was with Jake Roberts due to Martel spraying his perfume on Jake’s snake bag. He missed though and blinded Jake, setting up this Survivor Series match at Survivor Series 1990. Notice the team names.

The Vipers vs. The Visionaries

Jake Roberts, Rockers, Jimmy Snuka

Rick Martel, Warlord, Power and Glory

Power and Glroy are Hercules and Paul Roma. This is built around Martel vs. Roberts, which is based on Martel blinding Jake with cologne and Jake not having full vision yet. This was a BIG feud which they screwed up with a horrible match at Wrestlemania. It wasn’t that the wrestling was bad, but that it was a blindfold match and they spent about 2 minutes in contact with each other.

Marty and Warlord start as Piper is singing I Am The Walrus. Warlord powers Marty around but misses a charge in the corner. For those of you unfamiliar with Warlord, imagine Chris Masters but paler, bald, and even dumber. Both Rockers try to outmaneuver him but it just results in bringing in Martel. Shawn handles him with ease and brings in Jake, causing Martel to scamper away.

It’s Roma instead and Jake picks him apart like he’s not even there. He works on Roma’s arm and brings in Snuka to keep it up, but the afro apparently weighs down Snuka’s brain to the point where he can’t maintain a wristlock. Off to Hercules who gets chopped down so it’s off to Warlord instead. Snuka tries his stuff but when that gets nowhere it’s off to Marty. Jannetty tries his speed stuff but jumps into a great looking powerslam for the pin.

Off to Shawn whose leapfrog is caught but he ranas Warlord down instead. Jake comes in and the fans wants a DDT. A bunch of clotheslines take Warlord down and it’s back to Shawn. Roma comes in with an elbow drop to the back of the head as Gorilla talks anatomy. Warlord comes in and backdrops Shawn before tagging out to Herc. Martel comes in just as fast and drops a knee for two. Roma sends Shawn into the corner and Shawn of course sells it like he’s dead. Martel’s shoulder hits the post and here’s Snuka again.

A flying headbutt to the standing Martel gets two, but Rick grabs a small package for the pin out of nowhere. Jake comes in again and Martel immediately runs and brings in Hercules. Roberts is getting frustrated because he can’t get his hands on Martel, but he still manages a knee lift and a failed DDT attempt. Jake starts pounding away on Herc and Martel clotheslines him down out of nowhere.

Roma comes in for some stomping but he misses a middle rope punch. There’s the hot tag to Shawn who suplexes Roma down and hits a middle rope elbow for two. Shawn does what he can but Hercules comes in off a blind tag and pounds away even more. Power and Glory hook up the Powerplex (superplex from Herc immediately followed by a top rope splash from Roma) eliminates Shawn and it’s 4-1. It’s Hercules in first but Jake is in trouble. Warlord comes in with a bearhug but Jake escapes and DDTs him out of nowhere. Jake says screw it and gets the snake out. He chases Martel to the back for the countout loss.

Rating: D+. There wasn’t much to see here but other than Jake vs. Martel, there was nothing here at all. To the best of my knowledge, Warlord and Snuka never interacted at all before or after this so they were just tacked on. The Rockers and Power and Glory had fought at Summerslam but that’s about it. The Visionaries are the first ever team to survive intact.

Then the blowoff match at Wrestlemania VII.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel

In short, they’re both in hoods and neither guy can see. So the match starts and both guys point across the ring while trying to find where the other is. Martel gets down on the mat and crawls around, only to give us some stupid comedy spots with both guys tripping over the other. Rick tries a backdrop but Jake runs off to the side, showing that he can clearly see if you’re thinking about this.

They miss each other in the corner a few times until Martel finally grabs him for a slam, only to miss an elbow drop. Martel gets the referee in the corner, only to realize he’s grabbing a shirt. Jake uses the crowd for help by pointing and listening to the crowd cheer as he points at Martel. This continues on for awhile until Martel nearly grabs the snake bag.

The announcers continue a running joke where they can’t hear each other which isn’t funny. Jake gets knocked to the floor so Martel follows. He grabs a chair and pokes around with it but only hits the post. Back in and Martel takes Jake down and hooks the Boston Crab, only to have it broken quickly. Roberts grabs the DDT a second later for the pin.

Rating: F. This wasn’t wrestling. It was a stupid idea with both guys wandering around and making no contact for about seven and a half minutes before both guys hit their finishers. Thankfully this feud was done after this as I don’t think the fans could stand any more of it. Oh and on top of that, Martel didn’t cheat once by looking under the mask. Nice heel work there.

From two days later on March 26, 1991.

Randy Savage vs. Rick Martel

Back in the day “fans” would send in requests for matches like this one. This is two days after Mania and Savage is “fulfilling obligations”, so allegedly it’s historic. Martel jumps him from behind to start. This is in Las Vegas mind you, so pay no attention to the whole WORLD Tour concept I suppose. Hayes gets on Liz, making sure he’ll be in eternal torment soon.

Very basic stuff here as Martel goes after Liz and Savage doesn’t like that very much. Randy hasn’t actually done anything here but takes over for a bit just as I say that. And now he takes Martel to the floor and hits a delayed piledriver on the floor. The elbow ends it of course as Martel is DEAD. This is by far the shortest match on the tape so far.

Rating: D+. Best match so far which is saying VERY little. The ending was about as emphatic as you could ask for, but other than that it was boring. Savage had a bad tendency to do nothing at all and then hit one move and the elbow for the win, which is what he did here. I’m not huge on it but that was his thing by this point so it’s all we had to work with I guess.

Martel would get into an interesting mini feud with Shawn Michaels over who was the best looking. This led to a match at Summerslam 1992 with neither being allowed to punch the other in the face.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel

This is the rare heel vs. heel match. Rick is dressed for tennis for some reason I don’t quite grasp. The back of Sherri’s dress is missing, sending Vince into a frenzy over the sight of a thong. Martel grabs a headlock to start and avoids a right hand before doing some jumping jacks. Shawn slides between Martel’s legs and takes over with a dropkick. Apparently dropkicks to the face are legal.

Martel misses a cross body and Shawn cranks on the arm to take over. They trade nip ups but neither guy can bring themselves to throw a punch. Instead Martel, playing the face in the match, sends Shawn over the top to Sherri’s feet. Rick heads to the floor and hugs Sherri who seems very pleased with both men. Back in and they trade rollups with handful of tights each, resulting in Shawn’s tights barely staying on.

Sweet Chin Music to the chest gets two for Shawn and a knee to Martel’s face gets two. Martel rolls him up as well and now they’re ready to fight. They trade slaps to draw Sherri up to the apron…..and she faints. The guys get in a fight over who gets to give her CPR with the fisticuffs breaking out, resulting in a double countout. Sherri pokes her head up to reveal she’s playing possum.

Rating: D+. This didn’t do much for me but it was more of an angle than a match. Sherri would be gone soon after this which kept the story from going anywhere but the match here wasn’t terrible. Shawn would be launching through the roof soon after this by dominating the midcard for the next few years while Martel wouldn’t do much else in the company.

With his in ring career winding down, Martel would get in a short feud with Razor Ramon over the Intercontinental Title. Here they are on teams at Survivor Series 1993.

Team IRS vs. Team Razor Ramon

IRS, Adam Bomb, Diesel, Rick Martel

Razor Ramon, 1-2-3 Kid, Marty Jannetty, Mr. Perfect

IRS and Ramon are feuding over Razor’s IC Title, Martel was the guy Ramon beat for the title, Diesel and Adam Bomb are just there to fill in spots, Jannetty and Kid are a semi-regular tag team and Perfect….isn’t here. Ramon talks about Perfect leaving (his back messed up again and he just kind of left for five months) but he’s got a treat for us. He’s got a surprise partner and it’s……RANDY SAVAGE! Heenan LOSES IT and the crowd does too. This is when Savage wanted to murder Crush, who is in the main event tonight.

Heenan apparently called Perfect no showing this and Vince says Heenan was right for once. Bobby: “FOR ONCE???” Oh yes Bobby is feeling it tonight. Ramon and Martel start things off with Rick working on the arm. They fight for the arm and hit the mat for a bit before popping back up. Razor slaps him in the face and rolls through a cross body for two. Martel gets caught in the fallaway slam (BIG pop for that) for two.

Razor hits a pair of atomic drops and a clothesline for two. Off to Adam Bomb who shoves Ramon into the corner with ease. They collide and Razor is knocked down in something which shouldn’t surprise anyone. They have a test of strength with Bomb controlling again before Ramon fights up and suplexes Bomb down.

Martel tries to save but elbows Bomb by mistake. Harvey Whippleman (Bomb’s manager) gets up on the apron and is knocked down, causing a big fight between IRS’ team. Ramon’s team, somehow thinking coherently given how many drugs must be in them, actually uses common sense and lets them fight. We get things settled down and it’s the Kid vs. Bomb. Kid tries a sunset flip and Bomb (about 6’8 and 300lbs) is like boy please.

Off to Diesel who throws Kid around even harder. Who thought it was a good idea to put the Kid in there against the biggest and strongest opponents? A gutwrench powerbomb from Diesel leaves Kid laying and a big boot does the same. Kid finally hits a spin kick and it’s off to Savage who destroys the entire team, including sending Bomb into Diesel. A slam puts Diesel down and the flying elbow makes it 4-3. Write that down as you may never see Nash do another clean job.

Martel charges in and rams Savage face first into the buckle. Since it’s 1993, Martel’s offense has almost no effect and Savage takes over. Off to IRS who has a bit better luck as he takes Savage into the corner but gets cross bodied for two. Back to Ramon who works on the arm but as he hits the ropes, Martel hits Razor in the back to slow the Bad Guy (Razor’s nickname) down.

Bomb comes back in to power Razor around a bit but it’s quickly back to Martel. Make that IRS who works on Razor’s back. We hit the chinlock and the heels switch a few times without tagging. Off to Macho Man again who knees IRS into the corner. A slam looks to set up the Elbow but here comes Crush. Savage sees him and immediately goes after him but is sent back into the ring and rolled up by IRS for the pin and elimination.

Savage chases Crush into the back and looks for him in the locker rooms as the match is still going on. Savage doesn’t find him so we’ll continue this game later. We come back to the ring to see Adam Bomb choking away on Jannetty and stomping him in the corner. Martel hooks an abdominal stretch for a few seconds but a corner charge hits the post and it’s back to Ramon.

Razor pounds away on IRS and hits a chokeslam followed by the Razor’s Edge for the pin and the 3-2 advantage. Everything breaks down and as Razor loads up the Edge on Martel, IRS hits him in the ribs with his briefcase. Ramon rolls to the floor and gets counted out to tie things up again. So it’s Jannetty/1-2-3 Kid vs. Martel/Bomb. The Kid gets sent to the floor and slammed down by Bomb who hits a slingshot clothesline to take the Kid down back inside.

Off to Martel as the Kid is in a lot of trouble. Martel drops some knees on the back for two as Vince says the Kid has a lot of heart. Heenan: “THEN KICK HIM IN THE HEART!” Martel jumps into a right hand to the ribs and there’s the tag to Jannetty who cleans house. Back to the Kid way too soon for a double back elbow and a sunset flip to eliminate Martel. Kid immediately tags in Jannetty who sunset flips Bomb for the pin ten seconds after Martel was eliminated. REALLY hot ending here.

Rating: B. I really liked this match as it was fast paced and a ton of fun. If you cut about five minutes from this, it’s a classic. Having Jannetty and the Kid be the survivors was a very nice surprise and it gave the fans something to cheer for. Really liked this one and it puts the show off on the right foot.

Martel would retire for a few years before making a comeback in WCW in the late 1990s. Here he is at the peak of his comeback on Nitro, February 16, 1998.

Rick Martel vs. Perry Saturn

Martel takes over with a quick armdrag and we head outside with Martel sending him into the post. Back in and Martel fires off knees in the corner but a flying headscissors is countered into a hot shot. A missile dropkick gets two for Saturn but he jumps into a punch on another high risk attempt. Martel spinebusters him down but Kidman’s distraction lets Riggs knock Martel out. The Rings of Saturn get the academic submission as Martel is out of it.

Rating: C-. The more I see of Martel the more impressed I am. He comes out of retirement to put on consistently decent to good matches including an impromptu one here. It’s another good example of WCW having such a deep talent pool that they can have interesting stories with decent matches up and down the card.

From later in the same night.

TV Title: Rick Martel vs. Booker T

They talk some trash to start but Martel jumps Booker from behind. Rick yells at the crowd as he pounds on Booker but gets caught in a backdrop. Booker kicks him out to the floor as the fans tell Martel he sucks. Back in and Martel walks into a spinebuster, sending him right back to the floor. Booker works the arm back in the ring and gets two off a knee drop. Rick gets to his feet and catches Booker in a hot shot to take over before sending Booker to the floor.

Martel gets in some cheap shots on the floor before putting on a chinlock to slow things down. There’s the Quebec Crab but Booker is quickly in the ropes. A spinwheel kick takes Martel down but the referee is bumped. Cue Saturn to go after Martel but Booker kicks him off the apron. He hurts his knee in the process though and Martel puts on the Crab for the submission and the title.

Rating: C+. Martel has something special going here as his comeback hits a big milestone. This three way feud is interesting stuff as you Saturn’s logic is questionable (he can beat Martel but not Booker so why help Booker?), Booker has a case for a rematch and Martel turned to get the title.

Martel is the kind of wrestler who was never going to become the biggest star in the world but he was more than capable of holding down a solid spot in the midcard. He could wrestle a good match with anyone and had a great career for years just tagging with people and wrestling a basic style. It’s amazing how something that simple can give you a career. Yeah, being skilled in the ring and wrestling a style that anyone can adapt you can keep you employed. Martel won’t blow your mind but it’s hard to find a bad match from him.

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For my Christmas present to you, we’re looking at the strongest force in the universe: the Mega Powers.

The team got started when the Hart Foundation and Honky Tonk Man attacked Savage, causing Elizabeth to head to the back to get help. She picked Hulk Hogan for the save and the amazing handshake followed. Here they are in their first major tag match together, in the main event of Summerslam 1988.

Mega Powers vs. Mega Bucks

Jesse sends all three managers (Virgil, Heenan and Liz) to the floor but not to the back. He also makes the teams change corners for no apparent reason. Savage gets to fight Andre to start but it’s quickly off to DiBiase. He wants Hogan and gets both Hulk and an atomic drop into a right hand from Savage. Hogan pounds DiBiase as well and it’s off to Savage for some double elbows. A top rope ax handle gets two for Savage off a slow count from Ventura.

Andre comes in to beat Hogan down but Jesse is with Liz. Now the Giant comes in legally and sits on Hogan’s chest a few times before putting on a nerve hold. With DiBiase coming in sans tag, Andre chokes away with his singlet. Ted comes in legally for a near fall off a clothesline before dropping those trademark fists of his. Off to a chinlock which Gorilla swears is a choke. Hogan finally elbows his way out of the hold but a double clothesline puts both guys down.

The hot tag brings in Savage to pound away on DiBiase with right hands and a backdrop. A top rope ax handle puts DiBiase down again but Ted rams him into the top turnbuckle to change momentum again. DiBiase clotheslines Savage down and it’s off to Giant again. Andre sits on Savage in the corner which is a lot more devastating than it sounds. Back to DiBiase who gets two off a suplex. Ted goes up for a middle rope elbow, but Savage uses all of his flying elbow experience and rolls away.

Hulk comes in again off the real hot tag and cleans house on both Mega Bucks but Savage jumps into Andre’s boot. Hogan puts DiBiase in a sleeper but Andre makes the save with some headbutts. The Mega Powers are down, but Liz gets on the apron and in the most famous part of the match, takes off her skirt to reveal a bikini bottom and some nice legs. The distraction lets the Mega Powers do their big handshake and Hulk Up as one. A top rope ax handle to Andre, a flying elbow and legdrop to DiBiase later and things are pretty much done. Jesse only counts two, so Savage has to shove his hand down for the three.

Rating: B-. Much like the original Wrestlemania main event, there isn’t much to see here but it’s a fun match. It gave the fans exactly what they wanted and the Liz bit was a big surprise as she NEVER did anything sexual up to that point and rarely did after. Hogan and Savage were obviously going to win, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fun moment and a decent main event.

Then in the main event of Survivor Series 1988.

Team Mega Powers vs. Team Twin Towers

Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Koko B. Ware, Hillbilly Jim, Hercules

Big Bossman, Akeem, Ted DiBiase, Red Rooster, Haku

Savage is world champion and this is based on a tag team feud which would be blown off in a huge live match on February 3. Hogan comes out to his own theme music after his partners all used Savage’s. This is actually a plot point as the Mega Powers would explode because Savage thought Hogan was taking his spotlight. It’s a Wrestlemania rematch with Savage vs. DiBiase to start things off.

They knock each other down with DiBaise taking over in the corner. The champ comes back with right hands and a clothesline. Off to Hercules who is feuding with DiBiase as Ted had called Hercules a slave, prompting a face turn. Instead Herc gets the Red Rooster who doesn’t do well at all, which is the idea. Heenan said he could take anyone, even Rooster, to the top. Off to Koko who gets in a shot to Ware and it’s off to Akeem (One Man Gang).

Haku comes in with a chop but misses a legdrop and it’s back to Herc. I’m not sure why when you have Hogan and Savage on the apron but whatever. Now it’s off to Hogan and the place erupts. He takes Haku down and drops some elbows before bringing Hillbilly in for a quick main event opportunity. Akeem comes in and runs Jim over before bringing Rooster in. Even Gorilla found that stupid. Jim doesn’t do much to Rooster so here’s Koko instead.

Rooster rams Koko’s head into the buckle, but see, Koko is black so it doesn’t hurt. A missile dropkick gets two on Red and it’s off to Hogan. The big boot sets up Savage’s elbow and it’s 5-4. Hogan’s team has a massive in ring celebration while Bossman’s team hits the floor. Heenan rips into Rooster as we get Savage vs. Haku. Haku chokes on the ropes but Hogan makes a blind tag and, brace yourselves, actually loses a slugout!

Haku hits a nice dropkick but gets slammed down and it’s off to Herc. A suplex puts Hercules down and it’s off to Akeem. A splash misses and it’s off to Hillbilly who fires away with all he’s got. Jim’s big boot doesn’t take Akeem down and a clothesline floors Jim. The 747 (big splash) gets the pin and we’re tied up. Koko comes in and dropkicks Akeem in the back before wisely bringing in Hogan to do the heavy lifting.

Back to the world champ with a double ax to the head but they can’t knock Akeem down. Hercules pounds away a bit as does Koko with a dropkick only sending Akeem into the corner. Akeem shrugs it off and hits Koko once to take over. Off to Boss Man who hits his namesake slam to make it 4-3. It’s Hogan in now and this is the match everyone has been wanting to see.

Hogan pounds him into the corner and everyone left on Hogan’s team (Hogan, Savage, Hercules vs. Bossman, Akeem, DiBiase, Haku) gets in a shot. Hogan easily slams the then bigger Boss Man but he charges into a spinebuster. That looked really good too. Back to Akeem and the big men hit a double elbow to take Hulk down. Off to Haku who gets in some shots to the neck before tagging in Boss Man. I wonder why they’ve gone so long since having DiBiase in there.

Naturally as I say that he comes in and clotheslines Hogan down. A falling punch gets two but Hogan Hulks Up. Off to Hercules for some revenge and some hard clotheslines and punches. Virgil trips him up though and a school boy eliminates Hercules. It’s now 4-2 but Savage charges in and rolls up DiBiase to pin him within about ten seconds.

Haku comes in again but misses a headbutt, allowing Hogan to get the tag. Something like a superkick takes Hulk down and it’s back to Boss Man for some headbutts tot he back. Akeem comes in for his usual shots before it’s back to Haku again, who suplexes Hulk for two. It’s nerve hold time followed by the Boss Man Slam for no cover. Instead Boss Man goes up and misses a splash.

The hot tag brings in Savage who cleans house. Slick trips Randy up and things slow down again. Boss Man puts on a bearhug as Slick goes after Liz, grabbing her by the arm. Hulk makes the save and DRILLS Slick with a right hand. The Towers go to handcuff Hogan to the rope but Boss Man gets counted out in the process. Boss Man beats on Hogan with the nightstick and then goes to beat on Savage. Akeem helps with that, drawing a DQ for himself and getting us down to Hogan and Savage vs. Haku.

Hogan is still cuffed to the rope though so it’s basically a one on one match. Haku beats on Savage as the camera is on the Towers leaving. Slick has the keys and is taunting Hogan with them. Savage holds the rope and avoids a kick but there’s no Hogan to tag. Haku accidentally superkicks Slick and Liz raids his pocket to get the key. Hogan is freed and Haku hits a top rope splash for two. Hot tag to Hogan and since it’s 1988, you can fill in the ending for yourself.

Rating: C+. While not great, this was better than the previous match to be sure. This would be part of the Mega Powers Exploding, as Savage would be jealous of Hogan for getting the glory and not being there for him earlier in the match. It’s no classic or anything, but 80s Hogan is always fun.

This led to the big showdown at the second Main Event. The story here though is the post match promo, which I’ll throw in as a bonus.

Twin Towers vs. Mega Powers

This is an hour long show and the match is over twenty minutes long so if you didn’t get the idea, this is the only reason to watch this show. After the Towers get to the ring, we get a video about Hogan and Savage. This isn’t your typical video however. This is set to a WAY too upbeat song called You’re A Friend Of Mine by Clarence Clemens Jackson Browne. Look it up and picture a highlight package of Hogan and Savage. It looks like the intro to a REALLY bad sitcom. I can’t make this stuff up people.

Hogan and Savage say there is no issue with these three. The underlying theme here is that Hogan allegedly loves Liz but Hogan insists it’s just like a brother and sister. In short, this became about Hogan which Savage didn’t like which has to be at least half legitimate. Everyone talks a lot here and hey now let’s have a match.

Boss Man starts and Savage and Hogan both want to start for their team. Boss Man wants Hogan so Savage can’t get his way again. Hogan looks especially orange tonight. The heels are cleared out by Super Hogan alone and the fans are WAY into it. The little things in this match like Savage wearing Hogan’s colors with the words Mega Powers written on them but Hogan wearing his usual gear is very well done.

Akeem comes in and here’s Savage to meet him. Oh wait never mind Hogan needs to come back in. He even comes off the second rope to work on the arm a bit. Boss Man hits a Piledriver and Hogan does his fish out of water dance on the mat. I’m not sure if it looks more like that or a steak being grilled. One or the other. Jesse points out that Hogan is hogging the ring time and he’s absolutely right at this point.

Slick gets involved so Savage drills him in the face. Spinebuster which is unnamed at this point gets two. Savage finally comes in this has been ALL Mega Powers. Top rope cross body puts Akeem down but Slick gets a shot in to take down the Macho Man and momentum shifts. Savage is still world champion here if I didn’t mention that and you’re not familiar with this era.

And now we get to the meat of this show. Akeem throws Savage to the floor and he wipes Elizabeth out, landing right on top of her (lucky). She’s GONE and Hogan goes to try to help her which ticks Savage off for some reason. “Oh no the woman I love is getting helped after I was incapacitated! SCREW THAT!” Hogan carries Liz to the back in as dramatic a fashion as possible. He leaves with her as they check her out.

We get the other fun part of this as Hogan’s acting is at its peak here. Keep in mind we stay on Hogan and Liz for like 3 minutes with ZERO talk of what’s going on in the ring. Back from a break we get a bumper of the match and now back to General Wrestling Hospital. Hogan keeps saying thank God and making weird noises. I don’t have the video up as I’m typing here and the sounds are just disturbing. Leaving out the word God it’s God Elizabeth God Elizabeth and random moaning and groaning and breathing sounds.

FINALLY he realizes he’s left his partner for like ten minutes against two monsters so he comes back for the save and the glory. Oh but instead of like, I don’t know, GETTING IN THE RING and beating the tar out of one of the guys and helping Savage, he gets on the apron and grabs the tag rope. Savage continues to do all of the work and beats up Boss Man but won’t tag Hogan.

Savage slaps Hogan nice and hard and leaves him. Serves the bald pest right too. Macho stands on the floor and then leaves with his belt. For once Hogan has absolutely no one to blame but himself here. More on that later though. Air Africa (Akeem’s splash) hits Hogan, he Hulks Up, Boss Man apparently asks Slick if he knows where he can find a good turkey on rye as he pays NO attention to what’s going on and Hogan gets the pin.

Rating: C. Total angle here with a match as the backdrop but this was a big deal to put it mildly. This would be like Orton turning on Cena when they had been best friends for like a year. The match is just ok but that’s all it needed to be. Hogan’s hammy acting aside, this was perfectly fine for what it was.

Hogan goes to the back where Savage is losing his mind, talking about how the champion is supposed to be #1 to Liz who is laying on the table with apparently NO ONE checking on her at all. We now get the greatest promo of Savage’s career as he just goes off on Hogan, ranting and raving about how Hogan has stolen the spotlight from him since day one and how if Hogan wanted a title shot all Hogan had to do was ask and he would have beaten him 1-2-3.

He talks about how Hogan is jealous and lusting after Liz before DRILLING with the belt and beating the living heck out of Hogan in probably the biggest heel turn in company history at the time. I’d put it ahead of Andre as it was on a bigger stage and Savage’s promo was better.

Beefcake comes in for the save and Savage just ends him with like two shots, showing how worthless he was at the time. Savage leaves Hogan laying. Totally AWESOME segment and one of the best promos that I can ever remember anywhere with Savage letting out a year of frustration and paranoia all on Hogan with everything he said making perfect sense for once. Great segment and well worth checking out.

The team would split up for about six years after this, not reuniting until Clash of the Champions XXX in 1995. This match has one of the most amazing ideas you’ll ever see in wrestling.

Kevin Sullivan/Butcher vs. Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage

Vader gets in Hogan’s face during the entrances and Flair is back in his seat. Hogan throws Butcher into the corner to start and a running clothesline puts him on the mat. Savage comes in off the top with an ax handle to Butcher’s head before bringing Sullivan in for a beating as well. Back to Hogan as we look over Vader’s shoulder. Hulk runs over Butcher but gets caught in the sleeper. Savage tries to make the save twice in a row but Hogan is out cold.

Butcher lets go so Savage tries to wake Hogan up to no avail. With nothing else to do, Savage goes to the top and drops his signature elbow drop, causing Hogan to Hulk Up as he does every time he gets hit with a finishing move. It makes sense in that twisted wrestling logic. I mean….how freaking brilliant is that when you really think about it? Hogan fights back as everything breaks down with Savage being thrown over the top rope and out to the floor. Sullivan sends Randy into the post and then the barricade as the villains take over.

Savage takes a beating from both guys and is thrown to the floor again. He gets up quickly but can barely stay on his feet. Back in and Savage is tied up in the Tree of Woe (hanging upside down in the corner), drawing in Hogan for a failed save attempt. Butcher puts Savage in the sleeper but Randy breaks out with a jawbreaker. Hogan gets the hot tag and cleans house before Savage drops the elbow on Butcher. The legdrop is enough to get the pin.

Rating: D+. There wasn’t much to this one. The match felt like any other Hogan vs. monsters match but the monsters were Kevin Sullivan and the Butcher. At the end of the day, Hogan vs. someone smaller than him very rarely works and these two just weren’t going to cut it. The Reviving Elbow was a stroke of brilliance though.

Here’s a major showdown at Slamboree 1995.

Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair/Vader

Hmm, Flair and Hogan in a big match. I wonder what’s going to happen in the end. I have no idea why I’m bothering to watch this as the ending is as obvious as physically possible. Bischoff makes sure to point out that the fans came to see Hogan. He ignores the other probably 15 world titles in the ring, not to mention everyone else on the card. Renegade of course gets his own entrance, being the least talented of the 6.

Anderson has to pretend to be afraid of him and this is just stupid. Vader and Hogan start us off here. Vader would be gone in a few months to WWF to be replaced by the returning Luger. The faces are completely dominating here. Flair cheats to take over as you can see why this match means nothing at all: the match means nothing at all. It’s a tag match that proves nothing either way. Hogan will still be champion no matter what so why would I want to see this match? That makes no sense at all.

Oh look Hogan is beating up Flair. That’s a relief. For a minute there I thought WCW might be doing something new. I couldn’t handle that! The heels finally take over for a bit here. Oh and there was an appearance of a guy that we couldn’t see clearly. He would become known as the Giant, or later on as he’s known now, the Big Show.

They very kind of imply that he looks like Andre, which would be where they went with it. Vader screws up and shoves the referee across the ring. Naturally since that’s not the finish though he lets it go. The Vader Bomb hits but we have no cover. One from the top misses though and both he and Hogan are down. Yep still not interesting. Oh and Hogan might have died had that top rope Bomb hit. Did Savage vs. Vader ever happen?

That could have been decent. Flair gets slammed off the top for the second time in the match. That can’t be fun. Arn interferes to let the heels take over again. Renegade is fierce apparently. The moonsault hits on Savage and as Hogan makes the save he kicks out anyway. Just a reminder: Angelo Poffo is IN THE HALL OF FAME.

Hogan gets the hot tag and of course, beats the tar out of Flair. After a melee and some botched interference from Anderson, say it with me, HOGAN PINS FLAIR!!! The heels beat up Savage afterwards and then they beat up Angelo Poffo to the shock of no one as no one cares. Savage vs. Flair was the main event of the Great American Bash.

Rating: C+. Not bad I guess. It’s your standard main event tag match with nothing on the line which I never like at all. It was your run of the mill stuff with the heels beating down the faces for a good while until the heels mess up. Nothing too hardcore but nothing bad either.

Time for WarGames at Fall Brawl 1995.

WarGames: Hulkamaniacs vs. Dungeon of Doom

Dungeon: Meng, Kamala, Shark, Zodiac
Hulkamaniacs: Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Sting, Randy Savage

Gee, thing it’s one sided enough??? Luger replaced Vader who jumped to WWF a week earlier. They say a stipulation has been added where if Team Hogan wins, he gets 5 minutes with the Taskmaster in the cage tonight. They announced that earlier but maybe the crowd didn’t know yet. Now remember, we have Hogan, Luger, Sting and Savage, a WCW All-Star team vs. Kamala, Haku, Brutus Beefcake and Earthquake. Yeah this is a main event apparently.

Ok to be fair, this is the major feud in the company in their signature match so that makes sense. I have no issue there. I just don’t think this is the best they could do. Why not Flair and Anderson with two other guys? It would at least be more interesting. Sting and Shark start us off. More or less Sting massacres him as you would expect. Shark finally gets some offense in after Sting goes for a slam like the idiot he tended to be.

Sting is one of my favorites ever, but he did some DUMB stuff at times. In a funny spot, Shark goes to the end of one ring and after a running start, JUMPS OVER THE ROPE. However he doesn’t make it all the way as he gets stuck on the two sets of ropes over the gap in the rings. What a visual.

With 30 seconds to go before another guy comes in, Sting goes for the leg. With three seconds to go the Scorpion is on. The heels win the toss (naturally) and Zodiac comes in. In a cool spot, Sting grabs the top of the cage and pulls himself up and kicks Zodiac in the head. Sting does what he can but there is too much fat in there.

Savage comes in to tie it up. Like a crazy man he tries to suplex Shark. Are we really supposed to believe Sting and Savage can’t handle these two? The cage isn’t that great so Savage’s leg is hanging out of the cage and the heels are beating on it. His partners ignore him of course so there we are. Kamala comes in as it’s 3-2. Has Kamala ever won a big match? I don’t think so.

Luger makes it 3-3. There just isn’t much to say about this match as the periods are too short to really get anything going. Also the face team is so ridiculously stacked that there’s no drama whatsoever. Luger accidently hits Savage to attempt to give us some drama as Meng comes in to make it 4-3. Ok now why would Meng hit Luger there? Savage is using energy and hurting Luger so why stop him? The heels dominate for the rest of the period and here he is.

Hogan is the final guy in of course and he has powder. Not only does he have a far better roster of guys but he comes in and cheats. That’s Hogan for you I guess. Naturally he beats up the four guys more or less on his own when Sting, Luger and Savage combined couldn’t do it. That makes perfect sense right?

Heenan says this is like Bosnia. Even Tony stops him on that one. It’s just total domination here as you would expect. This is totally boring at this point as there is no way the heels are winning it. And Hogan gets a TERRIBLE camel clutch on Zodiac for the submission to win.

Rating: D. And that’s with an elevated rating due to it being WarGames. This was just AWFUL as it was so painfully boring. There was never any drama at all. I mean look at the rosters. Would you believe for a second that Hogan’s team was ever going to lose? Of course not and no one bought the heels as having a chance. It could have been worse I guess. Ok no it couldn’t be. One of the weakest WarGames ever.

Here’s a big showdown that could have made a fortune in the 80s, but we get it on Nitro, January 8, 1996.

Ric Flair/Arn Anderson vs. Randy Savage/Hulk Hogan

Lot of time left for this one too. Savage is wearing yellow and red and there are now pictures of Hogan on the floor in the aisle. Oh and this company doesn’t have has beens. They have the best in the world today. In WWF at this point it was Shawn Michaels rising to the top of the company. These jokes write themselves. Savage vs. Flair starts us off officially after a quick tag from Arn.

Flair is champion here and these two would eventually fight for the title at the PPV. Ok never mind as it’s Hogan vs. Flair starting out. Well why have Savage have a competitive match when we can have Flair get beaten up by Hogan? We get to a technical mat based style to start and of course Hogan wins that. A chop does nothing at all but a thumb to the eye of baldie takes him down.

The big boot takes Flair down again and here’s Arn so Hogan can beat up both of them on his own for awhile. Arn comes in as does Savage who of course has a bit more difficulty since he’s not Hogan after all. Double axe off the top gets two for Savage. After running away from Hogan for a bit Flair comes in and gets caught in a Figure Four by Savage. Hogan gets one on Anderson also as the Horsemen look like idiots already.

The Horsemen break up the holds with eye rakes as we take a break. Back with Savage in trouble in an abdominal stretch at the hands of Anderson. Savage gets his foot on the rope but Hogan makes sure to come in anyway to ensure that he gets credit for the save. Savage gets a quick sleeper but Anderson gets out with relative ease. The REAL Figure Four is blocked into a small package for two and then another one for two also.

Eric: Hogan is the freshest man in that ring right now and he wants in that ring. He’s on the apron when Eric says that of course. Flair knees Savage into Hogan and of course he beats up both guys on his own again. McMichael says the plan apparently was for Savage to take care of the Horsemen and then Hogan comes in and cleans house. I’ll let you figure out why that’s nauseating.

Anderson hits the spinebuster and Hogan of course pops up. This is getting sickening. The crowd isn’t popping for this stuff either. Hogan gets the boot and the legdrop for the pin but the Dungeon and the Horsemen run out for a big brawl as Giant beats up Hogan in the ring. Chokeslam for Savage too ends the show.

Rating: D+. Meh, it’s a main event tag match and Hogan gets to be praised and worshipped some more. What else is new really? This naturally was a way for Hogan to look dominant over everyone else and have them all be glorified cannon fodder before we set up the next match against Giant which SUCKED. Not horrible but it’s the same stuff we’ve seen for months now.

Here’s the setup for SuperBrawl VI at Clash of the Champions XXXII.

Randy Savage/Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair/The Giant

Savage has a bad arm coming in, which is an injury he had for months. Giant is called a legend despite having his first match about three months ago. Savage and Hogan have a line of women with them, including Woman and Elizabeth. Kevin Greene comes in before there’s any contact and gets down in a three point stance, sending Flair out side. Savage winds up starting with Flair and sends Ric outside where he eats a boot from Hogan.

Back inside and a slap sends Flair into the corner but he comes out with a thumb to the eye to take over. A big right hand sends Randy down but he grabs a backslide for two. The tag brings in Giant and he wants Hogan. Hulk gets a tag as well and Giant shoves him into the corner with ease. Giant easily shoulder blocks Hogan down and blocks a slam with a big forearm over the back. Hogan gets slammed though as the announcers talk about Andre the Giant vs. Hogan in 1987 without mentioning Wrestlemania.

A headbutt to the lower abdomen has Hulk in even more trouble and a backbreaker makes it even worse. Hulk avoids an elbow drop and actually gets the body slam. It hurts him more than Giant though and the bigger man is able to make the tag off to Flair. Ric scores with a suplex but Hogan pops up and takes Flair down with some clotheslines. Jimmy Hart distracts the referee and Giant takes Hulk to the floor for a bearhug. They head inside again and Hogan no sells the chops but runs into an elbow in the corner.

Flair goes up top and of course gets slammed off top, allowing for the tag to Savage. The fans don’t react in the slightest which can’t be a good sign. A top rope ax handle drops Flair and Savage hits the big elbow but Hart offers another distraction. He also throws Flair a foreign object, allowing Ric to knock Savage senseless for the pin.

Rating: C. The match was nothing special but it sets up another Flair vs. Savage match, presumably at SuperBrawl IV. Hogan vs. Giant was your usual stuff for Hulk fighting a monster but it was nice to see him get in trouble and not be able to just beat up Giant with ease. A double main event would seem likely for the pay per view.

Time for a six man tag with the Mega Powers lackey Brutus Beefcake as Booty Man. From Nitro, February 26, 1996.

Ric Flair/Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson vs. Booty Man/Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage

This is going to get a lot of time here. Big brawl right from the bell and the faces clear the ring of course. Arn wants time and doesn’t get it. He has to settle for a guy named Booty Man smacking him in the face. That’s your official starting pair and as they stare each other down, here comes Kimberly, the Diamond Doll, to stare at Booty Man. Who came up with that idea for a gimmick? I mean…..did Billy Gunn rip that off?

High Knee (get it?) sends Anderson to the corner as we’re spending a lot of time standing around. Booty Man beats up everyone as I think Anderson is still legal. Apparently not as it’s off to Flair. They can’t seem to go more than 10 seconds without pausing for something or other. Test of strength is won by Beefcake (that’s who it is if I didn’t mention that) as he’s been in there the entire time.

Off to Savage because Savage vs. Flair hasn’t been done in a whole week at this point. Savage clears the ring as apparently there’s no Nitro the next week. Good to know. Hogan comes in to beat on Flair because that’s what he does. This has bee a total wreck so far. A double big boot by Hogan and Billy Gunn’s inspiration gets two on Flair. The heels haven’t been in control yet.

Woman finally does something and grabs Savage’s leg to let Sullivan take over. Savage gets beaten on for a good while both in and out of the ring. He gets a shot in to take Kevin down and it’s back off to Booty Man. Not like Hogan should have to do anything you know. Booty Man sends everyone into Hogan’s boot and the leg drop ends Anderson.

Rating: D. Just a big mess here with the heels looking like idiots for the sake of another of Hogan’s buddies. Flair was world champion here but you’d never know it based on what he had to do every week for the sake of Hogan and company. Very weak main event all around and guess what the main event of the next show is?

From two weeks later on Nitro, March 11, 1996.

Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage/Booty Man vs. Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson/Ric Flair

Everyone will have straps that they can use here. There are also lumberjacks around the ring. Giant immediately grabs Hogan and the fight is on. Giant and Loch Ness mess up and hit each other so they get into a brawl of their own. That would be an ugly match at Uncensored. Every one is in the Foley flannel here. Booty Man and Sullivan are the only ones using the straps.

Kimberly comes down to stare at Beefcake/Booty Man. Egads. There don’t seem to be tags required in this. Flair tries to leave but Animal carries him back to the ring. This is more or less a riot instead of an actual match. There is absolutely nothing to say here as everything is all over the place. Hogan beats up some lumberjacks including DDP. Like I said, total mess here with nothing resembling a coherent match.

Flair and Hogan are FINALLY strapped together as Hogan still has a bad eye. No other pair is strapped together. Oh wait they’re not. They all have straps of their own. Shouldn’t that be something clear from the beginning? Big boot and leg drop to Flair out of nowhere end this. One of the biggest messes I’ve ever seen.

Rating: D-. This wasn’t even a match but rather just a mess. Was there a point to this at all? The lumberjacks barely paid attention to the match at all and just brawled the entire time. There was no way to tell what was going on and that’s not a good thing. Just an overbooked mess with no way of telling what happened at all. Not liking it at all.

One more brawl on Nitro, March 18, 1996.

Ric Flair/Kevin Sullivan vs. Randy Savage/Hulk Hogan

Naturally nothing Flair does works on Hogan because why in the world would we want the world champion to look impressive? Hogan puts a Macho Man foam hat on Flair’s head and beats on him even more. Eric points out that Hogan has already beaten everyone. That was basically the idea behind this match: we had no one left to face him so let’s just have him fight everyone at once. How well do you think this went over?

This has been mostly Hogan vs. Flair and remember they don’t have to tag here as it’s Texas (despite being in Tennessee) Tornado rules. We go split screen with both screens maybe filling in a quarter of the screen. You know, because we need a split screen for Savage alone pulling himself up. Eric keeps babbling about Dennis Rodman possibly being at Uncensored which of course he wasn’t at.

They switch off Flair takes Savage down. That can’t happen though so Hogan hammers away on him instead. Finally the heels take over for a bit and it’s a Figure Four on Savage. Instead of SAVING HIS PARTNER Hogan puts one on Taskmaster. Savage reverses his and Flair lets it go. Flair shoves the referee so the referee shoves Flair.

Here comes the Mega Powers as it’s 10PM so we’re going to stay with it, since the C in WCW stands for Commitment! Hogan and Flair slug it out and guess who wins there. Split screen time again as the heels are in control. Luckily this one doesn’t last as long as Sullivan chokes away at Hogan. More slugging out as the Mega Powers get going again.

Woman pops Hogan in the bad eye again but Hogan launches Flair off again as is his custom. He Hulks Up and here comes Anderson. Anderson saves Flair from the leg drop and Brian Pillman comes out with a chair and it’s a double DQ. In a Texas Tornado match, there was a double DQ. And people have the nerve to wonder why this company was looked down upon as being idiotic?

Rating: D. I’m getting REALLY tired of these brawls. They were fun at first but when you know what’s coming and that there’s no chance that Hogan and Savage will flat out lose they lose their luster really fast. Not a fan of these things and thankfully they’ll calm way down after this week’s show.

This led to my favorite review of all time, in the main event of Uncensored 1996. I’ll include the package to set it up as a bonus.

We recap the feud with Hogan and Savage against the Alliance. More or less what happened was simple: the Alliance challenged Hogan to a 4-1 cage match, but WCW wised up and realized Hogan carrying a match like that could expose him too much, so they threw Savage in there too.

Now, how did the Alliance put out this challenge? Was it by beating down Hogan? Was it by destroying something he held dear and valuable? Was it by making threats to his family and home? Nope to all three. They sent him a telegram. Let me repeat that. The feud and match were set by a group sending Hogan a telegram. That’s so freaking stupid I can’t even make fun of it. I truly can’t.

They sent him a telegram. I can’t get over that. Something else I notice: there hasn’t been a single mention of Randy Savage all show. It’s been nothing but Hogan. The team is known as the Alliance to End Hulkamania. In the build up from the announcers there’s no mention of Savage. What in the world is wrong with these people? Why am I trying to figure that out?

Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage vs. Alliance to End Hulkamania

The Alliance is Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, Barbarian, Lex Luger, Taskmaster (Kevin Sullivan), Z-Gangsta (Zeus from the late 80s) and Ultimate Solution (big fat strong guy that never did anything other of note in wrestling. He did play Bane in Batman and Robin though in case anyone is interested.) Now you might be wondering how this is going to work.

Well until about 3 minutes before the bell rings, so was everyone else. Literally, they didn’t know what they were going to do until the day of the show. That’s your brilliant wrestling company at work. The idea would be this. You have a ring with three cages on top of it. In other words, there’s a ring with a cage over it that’s very tall and has a top of in. The top of that cage is the floor of a second cage. That cage has six sides, all made of cage.

There’s ANOTHER of those on top. The match starts up at the top for no apparent reason. The idea is that it’s more or less a gauntlet match. There’s two guys on top, four in the middle cage and two in the bottom cage and Hogan and Savage have to win in all three cages. Yep, that’s it.

In a match that’s supposed to be all about violence and called a Doomsday match, we have a freaking gauntlet with regular pins and submissions. Let’s get to this. Michael Buffer is in the ring doing introductions for this as I have a feeling that this is going to take a LONG time.

He asks if they’re ready. He asks it again. I wonder if they’re going to break it down after the match. The cage I mean. Oh Brian Pillman is supposed to be in this but he’s left for ECW at this time where he would be for all of a day or so and then on to WWF. Flair comes out sans belt or any acknowledgment that he’s champion so you can see where the priorities are.

Oh we also have to wait for them to all climb up the steps to get to their cages too. Barbarian has been banned from wrestling in most countries in the world too. You learn something new every day. Zeus (I refuse to refer to him as Z-Gangsta more than I have to) and Ultimate Solution aren’t here yet. His original name was Final Solution. I’ll give you two guesses as to how that went.

So we’re starting with Anderson and Flair at the top so we’re starting with the Mega Powers vs. Anderson and Flair. Tell me, what’s wrong with that as a main event? I’d like that FAR better. Luger left WWF for this. That’s just sad. They finally just give up and call Hogan a superhero. Naturally the camera follows him up the stairs as my fear of heights is kicking in.

Dusty says the fans have been waiting for days in and around this building. Just go with it. Once they finally reach the top we start immediately and also immediately we see the massive problem: the fans can’t see a stupid thing. They’re about thirty feet from the ground (which of course hits as high as 65 so far according to Brain) and the lighting is awful.

Also, this is before the days of the Titantron. If they had that, this would be ok. No actually it wouldn’t be but it would have been better. The people watching the PPV from home have a hard time seeing this so imagine what it’s like for the fans there. They’re dead quiet too after the opening maybe 10 seconds because reality has set in. Oh Arn is wearing a full black body suit for no apparent reason.

Heenan says what I think might have been hidden jabs at WCW by saying “What a great thing for television!” and “Only here in WCW!” Those are either fed to him or shots at the brilliant minds who came up with this. Actually no. They’re not worthy of sarcastic praise. They’re freaking idiots. I mean seriously, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING???

If you’re going to do a cage match, fine. If you’re going to do a big cage match, fine. If you’re going to do a gauntlet cage match, that’s fine too. Actually that’s kind of an interesting concept. However, DO IT WHERE THE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT. My goodness how hard of a concept is that? What’s the most important aspect of any show? How about being able to see it?

The fans here might be able to make out someone next to one side of the cage but other than that, nothing. And don’t even bother staying if you sit across the arena and don’t have binoculars because you’re screwed. Sting and Booker won the main event already. I can’t get over how ridiculous this is. Seriously who thought this was a good idea?

Oh and there’s a referee up there too even though it’s Uncensored and therefore unsanctioned. There’s also a massive pole in the middle in case Hogan wants to shoot a Brooke Hogan video up there. They go to a wide shot to just further show how stupid this is. We can hear the wrestlers talking which is usually covered up by the crowd.

Maybe they can see as there’s a pop for Hogan ripping the shirt off. Heenan says this is better than the World Series or the Super Bowl. Yes it does Bobby, yes it does. Hey we’ve hit 70 feet in the air! Heenan redeems himself a bit with the line of all a manager can do here is hope they have a client in the morning. We get a random reference to some woman named Becky in Denver. Ok then.

Tony sums up the match perfectly: the fans wanted to know what the Doomsday Cage was so they’re finding out here. Well thanks for that Tony. In other words, we’re going to throw out a cool sounding name and say Hogan is in it against a bunch of guys that we’re only going to vaguely mention and say to find out, pay up. Once you hook them, you don’t have to do anything.

They did the same thing with the Elimination Chamber in 2002, but the difference was that match wasn’t bad. It certainly wasn’t great but I’ve seen far worse matches. Exhibit A is being reviewed at the moment. In the ultra violent match, we get double figure fours.

Heenan’s comedy is all that’s holding the pieces of this in place. Notice I didn’t say together but just in place as they would likely want to run away and join a witness protection program or something. Zeus and Solution didn’t wrestle again after this. They were the smart ones I guess.

Dusty says if you have a chain length fence (who doesn’t?) just go lay on it to see what this is like. Bobby: Then call your neighbor over and slap the figure four on him! Then put the figure eight on your Doberman! Bobby Heenan, I love you very much.  You need massive amounts of therapy and medication, but I love you.

Flair drops something from one cage to the other which is never explained or mentioned again. My guess would be the will of Flair’s career since it’s dead at this point. Hogan and Savage throw powder, which is likely the remains of the cocaine they needed to agree to this.

They go through a trapdoor to get to the next cage, and Anderson and Flair are eliminated. WOW. Ok so wait. All they had to do was get through a door? They didn’t have to pin someone or get a tap out but just go through a door? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m done. I’m going to stop trying to make sense of this match and that’s all there is to it.

This just doesn’t make sense at all but for some reason they insist that it does. Bobby says Boris Karloff would love this. Not really but ok. Hogan has a chain and beats on Sullivan with it. They’re down about 12 feet now so the crowd is a bit more into it. It’s the Faces of Fear (Meng and Barbarian) on Savage and Luger and Sullivan on Hogan.

This room has a door in the middle of it so it’s like two small cages. Actually there’s a reason for it though which will come up in a minute. After being beaten on by two grown men and a steel chain, Hogan is fine and manages to get the chain away to lock the door (which didn’t have a lock before but whatever) and trap Meng and Barbarian inside.

A shot of the cage from the floor makes this look a lot better as in essence they’re fighting on top of a regular cage. That’s not bad I guess. Anderson and Flair drop to the second cage and are trapped as well. Where’s my wah wah music when I need it? Heenan says it’s a maze with no way in or out.

Yep other than the doors they came in through, the doors they leave through or the path that the referee points them through to get to the end. Speaking of doors they go out of one and fight on the stairs which is kind of scary when you think about it as there’s no wall to save them there.

Sullivan is actually over halfway out as Heenan says that he’ll be spam if he hits. I’ll infract him if he does. I don’t want any freaking spam in my reviews. Savage and Luger are still in the cage by the way. According to Brain everyone is on their feet. They have to be to see this I suppose. They’re more or less quiet by the way.

Luger gets loose and we’re out on the floor. Yep, they got out of the cage and while the rules stated earlier in the match said that Hogan and Savage just needed to get down to win, they apparently are going to keep going. Hey, we’re having a Doomsday Cage Match, so let’s fight in the ring!

Yep, they’re fighting in the ring. Luger and Savage are fighting by the cage with Hogan and Sullivan in the ring. The four guys in the upper cage break out and head down the cage. Now this could be cool: Hogan and Savage 6-2 in the arena. Well ok I can go with that as at least its easier to see.

It’s more or less the same thing as the previous match but…that’s….why are the other four just leaving? They just walked back to the dressing room. Anderson and Flair are supposed to, but the Faces of Fear are still in this legally, but who cares about that? That would MAKE SENSE!

Hogan is beating on Luger in the ring while Savage is having boards thrown at him.

Apparently the Faces of Fear have been eliminated. Oh ok I think I’ve got it now: the rules are as follows. Hogan and Savage had to go to the top of the cage where they had to either pin or get a submission from Flair and Anderson but they were allowed to have an alternate way of winning because Hogan made a large donation to the Save the Wombat Foundation.

Next up they had to get pins or submissions on some combination of the Faces of Fear, Sullivan or Luger, but they were able to lock the Faces of Fear into a cage and therefore receive a Federal credit for preventing an international assault and battery charge since both men are international ambassadors sent by the King of Tonga to study wrestling (that’s actually not made up if you can believe that. That’s legit true).

Now at the beginning the rules stated that they simply had to get to the floor to win, however there was a clause stating that if there was a high percentage (17 or greater) of time spent on discussing the social habits of Bulgarian monks in the 15th century by the four in the second cage during the battle in the first cage, then simply getting to the floor wouldn’t be classified as a win.

In that case a pin in the other ring would work. However, that won’t work either because Lex Luger’s lawyers feel that the population of fire ants in this match were misrepresented so therefore a simple pin in the ring won’t work either, and the final two members of the Alliance to End Hulkamania, which has founded new chapters in Laos, Manhattan and the North Pole, fighting off the evils of Hulk-Chi-Min, Hulk Maritoni and Hulk-a-Claus, must be equally represented in this match, which must end via pinfall in the original ring.

HOWEVER, it will be allowed for former members of the Alliance to reenter the match under the Columbus Act which also founded Ohio in 1776, but also said that wrestlers were unlawfully evicted from the match via an international treaty can be allowed to return. ANYWAY, now that we’re back to the match, let’s continue here but I need to make sure this remains logical. It’s very important to keep that going here.

They’re all at the ring now and we have more bad chair shots. I love how the graphic under the split screen says Doomsday Cage Match despite a significant lack of cage. Here’s Ultimate Solution and Zeus. According to the clause listed above, we head back to the original cage for the showdown. Yep, it’s Hogan and Savage in a no tag tag-team match against two big strong guys. How do they come up with these things?

Sullivan is lurking around as I feel he needs to register. I’m sure there’s something in this match for him too. There must be a tournament somewhere. As if this wasn’t riveting enough, we hit a bear hug. Hey now, it’s time for the rematch of the match that didn’t happen seven years ago in another company that we’re not going to mention but imply that everyone knows anyway because that’s how we roll.

Ultimate Solution (hereafter known as porkchop for no other reason than I have the Doug song in my head) picks up Savage and has him in position for a slam, prompting Dusty to wonder what he’s going to do with him. Heenan says that he picked Savage up like a 100lb infant. Tony says there’s no winning or losing but only surviving. Yeah I’d agree.

Whose career can survive this match? Here’s Arn and Flair again as apparently their plan to eliminate Hulkamania is just to stomp them and punch them and slam them a lot. Yep, that’s the epic plan.

Tony is holding out hope despite a few seconds before saying it’s hopeless. I love that top level journalism there Tony! Keep it up and one day you might be able to get a better job like selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis! They actually argue over how many people are in there against Hogan and Savage. To get off of that we point out that this started with a telegram. Somehow that’s an improvement.

Naturally they ask if Hulkamania can survive instead of Hogan and Savage. It amazes me that he got so little respect over the years. He was nuts, but dang could he wrestle. In one of the best unintentionally funny moments I can ever remember, the powder that Hogan and Savage have spills out and within 5 seconds Brutus is there to help them. That’s just greatness.

Also they’re almost face down in it. Could this get any funnier? Now the interesting part is what Brutus does for them. He brings them weapons to even the odds, instead of actually sticking around to help fight like a friend would. Nope he brought them something to help them fight off the forces of evil.

What does he bring? Does he bring brass knuckles? Maybe a club? Perhaps a couple of chairs? Nope. He brings frying pans. Brutus Beefcake brings a pair of frying pans to help save his friends. Where in the world do I start? Let’s see: how about WHY DID HE HAVE FRYING PANS??? Was he making bacon in the back or something? Does he tend to carry cookware around with him? Did the barber shop fall through? I guess he couldn’t repair the window after Shawn broke it so he became a chef.

Somehow, that is the most logical thing I’ve said all night. There’s five minutes left so let’s get through this if we can. Luger comes back in with a glove that they imply is loaded. He sets to hit Savage but Macho ducks (that sounds like an upgrade to Duck Hunter) and Luger stops, but then starts again to hit Flair and turn face I guess. Hogan and Savage turn to leave but Savage runs back in and pins Flair while everyone else kind of stands around and lets it happen. WOW. So did they forget the whole pin thing too I suppose? Heenan is ticked off and leaves and we’re finally done.

Rating: -F. This is below an F. We’ve gone so low that we’ve went past Z (which stands for Zeus not Z-Gangsta blast it) and we’ve reached negative letters. That’s how insane this was. I mean it made no sense, the rules I laid out might as well have been the real ones because nothing stayed the same as it was in the beginning, you couldn’t see a stupid thing if you were in the audience, the match was exactly the same thing that it had always been with Hogan surviving, and the plan was just to beat them up a lot? Take note fans: never, I mean never, send a telegram in your life. You can see what it can lead to.

What a difference a year makes. Here’s another very unique match which actually worked at Uncensored 1997.

Team WCW vs. Team NWO vs. Team Piper

WCW: Giant, Lex Luger, Scott Steiner
NWO: Hall, Nash, Hogan, Savage
Piper: Piper, McMichael, Jarrett, Benoit

This is kind of like a cross between WarGames and a battle royal. You have three guys start and go five minutes. Then after two minutes we get another man from each team (Team WCW will miss an entry due to Rick going on and they weren’t smart enough to have Page fill in). It’s elimination style, which means we don’t have to deal with 11 guys in the ring at once. You can put someone out via pin, submission, knockout and over the top.

If Team WCW wins, the NWO is stripped of all titles and can’t wrestle for 3 years. If Team Piper wins, Piper gets Hogan in a cage at a time to be announced. If Team NWO wins, they more or less have carte blanche (Previously they would have gotten a title shot anywhere anytime, kind of like Money in the Bank). They change that back to the MITB thing but it would ultimately be the free reign thing.

Benoit, Hall and Giant start us off. They’re not at ringside which is kind of stupid as you would be able to jump them as they come out in theory no? Benoit jumps Hall before Giant gets there. Not that we can see that as we need to see Giant’s very slow walk to the ring instead. Giant gets in very slowly which is rather smart before taking them both down with a clothesline.

Benoit tries to chop away and it doesn’t work at all. It’s almost hard to believe that Benoit would be world champion before Hall. Basically this is Giant and two other guys in there as he keeps dominating the entire time. Elbow drop on Hall so Benoit tries to jump Giant. No real attempts to throw anyone out but since you can win by pinfall that’s ok.

Sleeper doesn’t work for Hall and Giant gets a huge chokeslam to Benoit for only two. Hall saves, I guess out of fear of fighting Giant one on one. Giant busts out the claw of all things but a corner splash misses and Giant is gone first! That leaves two guys for Team WCW. The clock runs out on the first period and it’s Jarrett, Randy Savage and Luger. That puts five guys in the ring at the moment if you’re keeping score.

It’s more or less a battle royal at this point as Luger can’t gorilla press Savage out. Jeff avoids a Razor’s Edge and here come Mongo, Nash and Scott Steiner. No real effort to put anyone out right now as everyone is really just beating on each other. Belly to belly puts Nash down as we only have Hogan and Piper left. Nash gets a big boot and clothesline to Jarrett and he’s out. Jeff that is. Mongo gets backdropped out so Team Piper has just Benoit and Piper left.

Here are Hogan and Piper so everyone is out there now. Nash gets a big boot to Steiner to knock him out so Luger is all that’s left for WCW, Piper and Benoit for Piper and all of the NWO is left. Wait where’s Hogan? What a shock he’s going to come out last isn’t he? Oh there he is with Dennis Rodman. Piper is on the floor but not out. Scratch that as he’s back now. Seven people in at the moment.

Hogan, Piper and Savage are on the floor with Hogan kind of chilling and Piper choking Savage. The Outsiders beat up Benoit and everyone is finally in there at the same time. Hogan throws Piper through the ropes and they brawl on the floor a bit. After Savage jumps them in the aisle everyone goes back to the ring. In a HORRIBLY stupid looking moment, Piper is sent into the ropes but Rodman pulls it down to put him out. This would have looked passable if Piper didn’t JUMP OVER THE ROPE BEFORE IT WAS PULLED DOWN. And people wonder why they went out of business.

They keep brawling on the floor anyway and Savage helps as it’s the Outsider Edge for Benoit. The tag champs toss him out and Team Piper is gone. Luger is the only one left for WCW and he’s against technically five guys counting Rodman. The NWO literally stands around for a minute and a half posing before Nash sets him up for a powerbomb.

Luger escapes and racks Savage, clotheslines Nash and racks Hall to eliminate all three in under thirty seconds. And never mind as when he goes to rack Hogan, Savage gets the spraypaint from Rodman and pops Luger in the face with it so Hogan can get the winning pin. The NWO won a big match. I’m shocked too.

Rating: B-. The match was actually pretty good as it didn’t really get stupid and for a big multi-man tag, this actually worked. I fail to see why Rick wasn’t out there but still, pretty good stuff. The ending was obvious but it doesn’t ever drag, the stuff they did made perfect sense the entire time and it was kind of interesting. Shockingly good main event.

We’ll settle down a bit with Nitro on February 16, 1998 in a match that could have headlined Starrcade.

Hollywood Hogan/Randy Savage vs. Sting/Lex Luger

Savage jumps Sting and Luger in the aisle to start the fight and Hogan sends Sting into the barricade. Hollywood hammers on Sting inside but Sting comes back with right hands to send Hogan out to the floor. Savage and Luger head into the ring now with Savage choking on the ropes.

They’re the official starters but when Savage goes to tag Hogan he’s out on the floor with Bischoff. Hollywood gets on the apron so Randy tags him with a forearm to the back. Three elbow drops get a near fall on Luger but Hogan’s legdrop misses. Hot tag Sting and Hogan is almost immediately in the Scorpion. Here’s the NWO as the match is thrown out.

Rating: D+. Did you really expect anything else here? There’s nothing wrong with setting up the two PPV main events in one TV match as it kills two birds with one stone without doing the same match twice. This was your usual NWO style brawl and the match itself only lasted a few minutes but it was entertaining enough to get by.

And the rematch from a month later on March 16, 1998.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Hollywood Hogan/Randy Savage

Savage on the mic: “OOOOH YEAH!” Hogan on the mic: “OOOOH NO!” Why did no one think of that before? Sting’s music hits but we only have Luger. Buffer does the entrance but there’s no Sting. Bischoff takes the mic and says Luger is on his own because there’s no Sting. The camera pans up to show a helicopter (blowing the ring skirts and mats around) with Sting REPELING INTO THE RING!

Hogan blames Savage for this so Savage goes to leave, only to be stopped by the Disciple. Hogan jumps Randy from behind as Hogan and Sting look on from the ring. Savage is thrown inside and gets beaten up by Sting with the fans trying to recover from the entrance. A top rope splash gets two for Sting and he shouts at Savage to get up. Sting pops Hogan with a right hand and brings in Luger to work on Savage even more.

Luger suplexes Savage down for no cover and drops him again with a gorilla press. Back to the world champion for an atomic drop before Luger comes in for the running forearm. Hogan isn’t even paying attention to the ring. Savage gets up and slaps Hogan on the back but Hogan says he doesn’t think so and bails.

Randy throws Hogan back inside before getting in a fight with Disciple. Hogan chokes Luger down but Lex avoids the legdrop and tags in Sting. There are a pair of Stinger Splashes for Hollywood and a right hand for Bischoff. Savage is rolled in by the Disciple and everything breaks down, drawing in the Disciple for the DQ.

Rating: D. This wasn’t a match as much as a massive angle. Hogan and Savage already had a bad match last night and it looks like we’re gearing up for another one in the future. Luger continues to be a man with no direction at all as he’s just thrown into random matches to fight for WCW because that’s all he does. Bad match here but the entrance was awesome.

I don’t think it’s any secret that the Mega Powers were a bigger deal in their early days, especially with the stuff leading up to the explosion at Wrestlemania V. Even after that though, it still felt like a huge deal when these guys would team up. They were the biggest stars of their era and they were still a big deal in WCW when they were both past their primes. These two were joined at the hip (and unhip in WCW) and it made a lot of fans very happy over the years.

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This is going to be a shorter list of options but those options are close.

Again, I’m aware there are options like ReDRagon, the Kingdom, Bullet Club and the Young Bucks but I just haven’t seen enough of them to have an opinion.

We’ll start down in NXT with the Ascension. These guys just dominated the tag team scene down in developmental and there was no one that could stop them. You don’t go on as champions for 364 days without being a dominant pair. They’re back in the style of Demolition or the Legion of Doom, which isn’t something you see in today’s wrestling product. It worked back then though and it’s going to work today. With their main roster arrival next week, it’s going to be very interesting to see where they go from here.

Then we have the Wolves, who became one of the most polished tag teams in TNA history with a great series of matches against the Hardys and Team 3D. Unfortunately that’s about the extent of TNA’s tag team division and they ran out of competition in a hurry. That being said, they’ve had some great matches in their time and look like a team that could go on for awhile, either together or solit into singles.

Goldust/Stardust were good, but they’re still fairly boring. I’ll mention them here but there’s almost no way to suggest they’re the best.

The Usos were a step ahead of the Dusts but like I said in the Title Reign of the Year entry, there’s really nothing epic about their reign. The feud with the Wyatts was good, but it’s not really worthy of calling them the best team of the year. They’re good, but not the best.

As usual, that leaves us with two options: the Wyatts and the Shield. They had one of the best matches of the year at Elimination Chamber and another pair of matches which aren’t as remembered with the teams getting a win apiece. However, let’s look at the teams’ biggest feuds of the year for a tiebreaker.

The Wyatts’ biggest feuds were Bray against Cena and the Family against the Usos. Both of these were losses for the Wyatts, leaving them to be rebuilt later in the year. The Family bounced back a bit with their singles runs and Bray has rebounded with the Ambrose feud, but it’s not quite what it used to be.

On the other hand we have the Shield who turned face the night after Wrestlemania and immediately started a feud with Evolution. Shield won both of those matches before splitting, setting up all three on huge singles pushes. This was their year and it’s clear that they’re going to be the future of the company.

This came down to the Wyatts vs. Shield, but at the end of the day, the Shield actually won some stuff this year and are ready to take WWE over very soon. You just can’t say that about the Wyatts yet, but Bray is going to be a big deal in the near future.

Today, with Santa on the way, we’re going to look at the greatest thing ever: WRESTLING REFEREES!

We have a trio to look at today, starting with Earl Hebner. First up is a match that became a long term running joke. From Smackdown on May 4, 2000.

WWF World Title: The Rock/Earl Hebner vs. HHH/Road Dogg/X-Pac

Rock is defending and only HHH can take it from him. HHH’s left arm is in a sling but the three McMahons and the Stooges are in the challengers’ corner. Rock and Road Dogg start things off with the champion hammering away and nailing Dogg with a clothesline. Even a triple team doesn’t work on him as he tilt-a-whirl slams X-Pac for two, only to have HHH nail him from behind. It’s amazing how much energy there is in this match as the fans are clearly WAY into it.

HHH comes in with some heavy right hands but Rock sends him into the corner and snaps off punches of his own to get the fans back into it. Hebner gets in a shot of his own as Rock wisely starts going after HHH’s bad arm. The champ makes the mistake of going after Dogg and X-Pac but walks into a neckbreaker from HHH.

We get to Rock’s heat segment with Hebner trying to come in to help, only allowing Vince and Shane to get in some choking. The Dogg comes in and hits a shaky knee drop for two, followed by a spinwheel kick from X-Pac. Now it’s time to go after Hebner but Rock pops up with more right hands. Cue Jericho to jump HHH and distract the McMahons so Hebner can hit X-Pac low, allowing the Rock Bottom to retain the title.

Rating: C+. Now this is an interesting specimen. Coming straight off of Backlash where Rock got the title back in a huge moment, it was fairly clear that the title wasn’t changing here. However, they gave you enough of a reasonable doubt that it could happen and the fans in the arena bought into it. That’s the key difference between today and back then: the fans accepted it because it COULD happen.

Look at modern WWE. You rarely see a title change unless it’s a major, built up match with Big Match Intros on TV or at a pay per view. That is assuming that the title is ever defended on TV (or at all with Lesnar on top) in the first place of course. Here though the title is on the line, there’s the slightest hope of a title change, and the fans bought it. Also, how many times do you see a referee defending a title? It’s a unique idea and something different which lets you save HHH vs. Rock for a major showdown on pay per view. See how a little creativity can help things so much?

Hebner would defend the WWF’s honor against his WCW counterpart at InVasion.

Earl Hebner vs. Nick Patrick

Of all people, Mick Foley is the referee here. Yeah I don’t get it either but whatever. He’s wearing a Marvel t-shirt so I can’t complain at all. Nick comes out with an army of referees which is just funny looking. Earl does the same. It looks like the world’s weakest gang. Oh and they’re in refereeing gear.

Take a wild guess as to the quality of the work here. Do I need to offer commentary on this one? It’s a glorified lumberjack match. Foley throws out the WCW referees. Earl hits something resembling a spear for the win. Patrick gets in Foley’s face and guess what happens. I think you know the drill.

Rating: N/A. I’m not grading two non-wrestlers like I would grade regular wrestlers. The match was the disaster you would expect and more of a novelty than anything else. Having Foley in there was the only thing they could have done, but it really didn’t do enough to save the thing.

One last Hebner match from Impact, December 5, 2013.

Ethan Carter III vs. Earl Hebner

Ethan takes his time and puts a finger on Earl’s chest for the pin at 48 seconds.

We’ll move on to something a bit more competitive(ish) with Nick Patrick, the top WCW referee post Tommy Young. Patrick was incredibly crooked a lot of the time and would regularly have to fight wrestlers he screwed over. We’ll start things off at World War 3 1996 with Patrick as the NWO referee.

Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick

Patrick has been an evil referee that has screwed Jericho over a few times and this is revenge time. Jericho has Teddy Long as his manager which didn’t last long. He also has to have one arm behind his back. We hear about Nick Patrick’s wrestling career which also didn’t last long. It’s the left arm here so this should be dominance. Patrick cuts a short promo and we find out why he’s a referee.

Patrick is in a sleeveless shirt and is in the NWO here. He also has a neckbrace. With one arm, Patrick wants a test of strength. That whole wrestling background falls apart pretty quickly here as it’s all Jericho who puts on a clinic with one arm. It’s all Jericho as we go to the floor. Jericho misses a clothesline into the post though and Patrick takes over for a bit. Since his offense does nothing though, we’re kind of just wasting time here. Jericho channels his inner Shawn Michaels for a superkick to end it. This was the first pinfall loss for the NWO on PPV, four months after they debuted.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring but they came up with some fairly creative spots to let Patrick get some offense in. This was just kind of pointless though as there was no challenge at all for Jericho and it just kind of fell flat. It could have been FAR worse though as at Patrick was actually a former wrestler (a knee injury ended his career) so he actually had an idea of what he was doing.

Now we’ll get a double shot at evil Nick Patrick faces good referee Randy Anderson for Anderson’s job. Bischoff had fired Anderson, who was suffering from cancer at the time, and this is his chance to come back. From Nitro, February 17, 1997.

Nick Patrick vs. Randy Anderson

If Anderson wins, he gets his job back. Patrick trained to be a wrestler but blew out his knee so he became a referee instead, meaning he actually has an idea of what he’s doing. Apparently Anderson has an amateur background. He even gets fire as he comes to the ring. The regular referee checks for weapons and hands Anderson a foreign object. On camera of course so you know it’s going to be called out later. Randy hits him and wins in about 30 seconds.

Now that the lame ones are over, we’ll look at someone……well he’s still lame but not quite so much. Our final entry is the real evil referee Danny Davis, who cost the British Bulldogs and Tito Santana (less so in his case) titles back in the mid to late 80s and joined Jimmy Hart’s stable as a result. Davis would regularly wrestle for over a year so I have some material to work with here. We’ll start with Wrestlemania III, where the ripped off former champions getting their revenge.

Hart Foundation/Danny Davis vs. British Bulldogs/Tito Santana

Davis is a crooked referee that cost both the Bulldogs and Santana their titles. Apparently this is Davis’ debut as a wrestler. Mary Hart (no relation) is on commentary along with Uecker here as well. Tito beats up Danny before the match before we get going with Bret and Santana. Jesse steals the Bulldogs’ mascot Matilda as he leaves. Off to Davey vs. Anvil and Smith pulls him by the beard. That’s a bit rough even for Neidhart.

Tito comes back in to work on the arm but gets sent to the heel corner for some high quality choking. That goes nowhere so here’s Smith vs. Neidhart again. Jim takes him down with a suplex but Bret misses a middle rope elbow. Dynamite comes in for the chest to buckle bump from Bret but Hart comes back with some punches. Tito tries to break up some interference but only allows even more cheating by Neidhart.

Jim hooks a modified camel clutch on Dynamite before it’s back to Bret. I don’t think we’ve seen Davis in yet but before I can finish that sentence he’s in for a few stomps. That’s the extent of his offense as it’s already back to Bret for some actual skill. The sun is starting to go down so the arena looks dark now. Back to Danny for one kick before it’s time for the Hitman again.

The Harts slingshot Davis right onto Dynamite’s knees and it’s off to Santana for the beating on Davis that the fans have been waiting for. Tito destroys Danny and hits the forearm but Neidhart breaks up the Figure Four. Off to Smith who rams Davis’ head into Dynamite’s. A jumping tombstone (not yet named) kills Davis even more but Smith doesn’t want the cover. There’s the delayed vertical followed by the powerslam but everything breaks down. Davis pops up and hits Smith with the megaphone for the pin in the melee.

Rating: C-. As fun as the beating Davis took was, the ending is really stupid as he popped up like nothing and was able to knock out a power guy with a single shot? The guy was a referee a few months ago but he’s able to do that with one shot? Bad ending aside, this was fun stuff and the fans were WAY into it.

Davis would be in the first Survivor Series match ever in 1987, but had this warmup match two days earlier in Madison Square Garden on November 24.

Jake Roberts vs. Danny Davis

Davis is a former referee that is just now getting good enough to be a jobber. There’s no Jimmy Hart here for some reason. Davis stalls like a Memphis man which he isn’t. They have to do this because there’s no one in the arena that thinks Jake will have any issues once he gets his hands on Danny. The fans however don’t like the idea of wasting two minutes on hiding in the ropes though so they’re not very pleased.

They lock up but Jake won’t punch him for some reason. More locking up and more stalling. Danny won’t do a test of strength as we’re about three and a half minutes into this and the high point has been a tie up. Jake gets a knuckle lock (half a test of strength) and tortures Danny with it for a bit. One arm slam by Jake as we’re just killing time here. More stalling, this time on the floor. Danny gets in his jobber offense for a minute or so until Jake gets bored and DDTs the heck out of him to end it.

Rating: F. This got 8 minutes. Do I need to explain why this was boring as all goodness. Well yeah I probably should, as the match explains the problem with Davis in general: he could draw incredible heat for cheating to win a lot of his matches, but when he had to have a match with some length, there’s only so much he can do. Unfortunately that was passed about two minutes in and Davis could only hide in the ropes and stall for so long. If he could have wrestled even at a passing level, he could have been far more effective.

Here’s the Survivor Series match.

Team Honky Tonk Man vs. Team Randy Savage

Honky Tonk Man, Harley Race, Ron Bass, Danny Davis, Hercules

Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake

Honky doesn’t have Cool Cocky bad as his theme music yet which is a shame. It’s amazing how great the music got in the late 80s. After the heel entrances, Team Savage says they’re here to settle scores. This was a different time as almost all of the faces were friends by default as were the heels just because they were faces and heels. The feuds going into this are Honky vs. Savage and Race vs. Duggan. Other than that the guys are just random midcarders who are faces or heels on a team, which is a pretty cool idea.

The place erupts for Savage’s entrance. Even Jesse couldn’t deny how great Randy was and was a huge fan in his own right. It was clear they had to do something with him soon, and they certainly did soon enough. In the answer to a trivia question, it’s Beefcake vs. Hercules starting the first Survivor Series match ever. Beefcake struts a bit and not much goes on for the first 20 seconds or so.

Hercules (guess what he’s known for) runs Beefcake over but walks into Barber’s sleeper but he falls into his corner to tag in Davis, one of the lowest lever guys you’ll ever find who somehow wasn’t a jobber. He’s a wrestling referee. Seriously, that’s the extent of his gimmick. He’s a referee who cheated a lot and got fired. Savage and Steamboat (who are apparently fine after wanting to kill each other about eight months ago) take turns on Davis but Steamboat misses a charge and it’s off to Race, the current King of the WWF.

Steamboat chops Race in the head and man alive how amazing would those two be able to be in a long old school program? Steamboat skins the cat (I’ve asked this many times, but is that really the best name they could come up with for that? I mean, skinning a cat?) and sends Race to the floor before bringing in Duggan to pound away on Race, knocking him to the floor. Hacksaw heads out with him and they brawl to a double countout, making it 4-4.

Bass (a standard old school cowboy) comes in to face Roberts but it’s quickly off to Savage. A knee sends Bass into the corner and Savage is starting to roll very fast. Savage immediately goes after Honky due to the really bad blood between the two of them and it’s lets Bass get in a shot. Off to the IC Champion (Honky) who gets in some cheap shots but like any good heel, he tags out when Savage starts coming back.

Bass comes in again but a blind tag brings in Barber (Beefcake for you younguns) who hits a high knee for the elimination. Hercules comes in and the bad guys start working over Beefcake’s arm. Off to Honky with an armbar and then right back to Herc. Wisely they’re keeping that schmuck Danny Davis out of there. I guess he’s there because he works for Jimmy Hart but other than that there’s no logical reason for him to be there.

Beefcake tries to punch his way out of trouble but Honky stays on the arm. To say Honky wasn’t much on offense is an understatement as he barely looks to be cranking on the hold at all. Beefcake fights out of the hold but won’t tag because he’s kind of dumb. Davis adds the only thing he’s going to add the whole match and knees Beefcake in the back so that Honky can hit the Shake Rattle and Roll (swinging neckbreaker) for the pin on Beefcake to tie us up at three.

Off to Savage vs. Hercules with the power guy taking over. Davis comes in and things suddenly go downhill for Honky’s team. Yeah, a referee beating on Randy Savage doesn’t work. Who would have guessed? Honky comes in and gets elbowed in the head which lets Savage tag in Jake to pound away. The comeback doesn’t last long though as Jake charges into a boot in the corner and it’s off to Herc. That goes nowhere so here’s Davis and since his offense sucks (BECAUSE HE’S A REFEREE) Jake shrugs it all off and DDTs him to death, making it 3-2 (Savage/Steamboat/Roberts vs. Hercules/Honky).

Herc comes in and takes Jake down and Savage tries to come in for a save, which just allows the heels to double team Jake. Savage isn’t thinking here because of his anger, almost like…..a savage. Oh you’re very clever WWF. Honky hooks a chinlock and Hercules comes in to do the same. Jake hits a jawbreaker to escape and there’s the hot tag to Steamboat who cleans house with chops.

A top rope chop has Herc reeling and it’s off to Savage for the elbow. It’s just Honky left and Savage explodes on him, only to miss another charge (third one for Savage’s team) and let Honky get in some offense. That lasts all of six seconds as the beating continues. Jake comes in and pounds away on him, followed by Savage dropping a double ax. An atomic drop sends Honky to the floor and he’s like screw this and takes the countout. Can you blame him?

Rating: B. This was a really fun match with a good story to it. The fans HATED Honky and the idea of getting him caught at the end with no one to defend him had the fans going nuts. Honky vs. Savage was a great feud but it never had a blowoff due to a bunch of backstage stuff. Honky would somehow hold the title nine more months before perhaps the greatest end to a title run ever at Summerslam. This was a great choice for a first match ever for the concept too as it showed how the idea worked and gave the fans something to cheer about too. Really good stuff.

From two days later on Saturday Night’s Main Event XIII. This is the result of a one off angle six months earlier where Davis hit George Steele with the ring bell.

George Steele vs. Danny Davis

Steele starts fast and goes after Davis in the corner before choking him in the air. At least Danny is smart enough to bail to the floor so Steele chases the referee around the ring. Back in and Davis’ right hands have no effect as George punches him right back out to the floor. Davis tries to sneak up on him but Steele falls to his stomach into a drop toehold, sending Danny back to the floor and Jesse into shock.

A chair won’t be allowed inside the ring but the distraction lets Danny get in a cheap shot with a foreign object. Davis chokes on the ropes, with Jesse claiming that he’s just brushing Steele’s teeth and barely holding back a big laugh. More foreign object shots have Steele in trouble but he grabs a flying (lifting) hammerlock, actually his regular finishing move. Davis kicks the referee by mistake for the DQ.

Rating: D-. Why in the world did this not close the show? Steele winning here is fine as no one was going to buy Davis as anything other than a joke heel, so I really don’t see why Steele couldn’t have gotten the submission here. This really was an odd choice to open the show as it was a comedy match instead of the usual hot start. Also did a moment from the spring really need a blowoff in November?

Another Saturday Night’s Main Event with XVI.

Danny Davis vs. Brutus Beefcake

Based on the two interviews I think you get the story here. Davis is the former referee that always cheated and is now a bad heel. Jesse sounds stunned when Davis goes on offense. That’s hilarious for some reason. They botch something and down goes Davis with the fans just losing their minds over Beefcake. The sleeper goes on and this is academic. Post match Davis gets his hair cut…kind of. Oh and he gets a skunk stripe put on his back and hair.

Rating: D. Just a quick match to get Brutus over a bit more. That works as it was just a comedy thing for the most part but it was really short. Post match stuff went on a good bit longer though and let Davis get some more of what was coming to him. That’s the entire point of the character and it worked well enough here.

We’ll wrap it up at Survivor Series 1988.

Team Ultimate Warrior vs. Team Honky Tonk Man

Ultimate Warrior, Brutus Beefcake, Sam Houston, Jim Brunzell, Blue Blazer

Honky Tonk Man, Bad News Brown, Danny Davis, Ron Bass, Greg Valentine

This is fallout from Warrior winning the title at Summerslam. Brunzell is subbing for Don Muraco who has left the company at this point. That’ll be a recurring theme tonight. Valentine and Beefcake starts us off, making it the second year in a row that Beefcake has opened for his team. It’s quickly off to Davis and the sleeper puts him out in less than a minute and a half. Well to be fair there’s no reason for him to be around anyway. Valentine charges right back in to continue the war of the original Dream Team, which I doubt most people would remember at this point.

Greg goes after the legs as is his custom, but since we’re only about three minutes into the match, the Figure Four is broken up. Well to be fair everyone says that Valentine doesn’t get warmed up for about ten or fifteen minutes so he’s still looking for his keys at this point. Off to the Blazer (played by then mostly unknown Owen Hart) who drops an ax handle onto Valentine, giving us the trademark slow fall.

Valentine goes for the arm (not a hammer lock which takes away the irony of it) but Blazer easily takes him down with a headscissors and brings in Brunzell. The Killer Bees were gone at this point so he’s just a guy in trunks. He’s a guy in trunks with a good leapfrog though as he clears Valentine with a lot of room to spare, only to get slammed down. Brunzell pops up and hits the dropkick but it’s off to Bad News. Sweet goodness was this guy born in the wrong generation. Imagine him after the rise of MMA, remembering that he’s a legitimate Olympic bronze medalist in judo.

Brown comes in like the headhunter he’s known as and kills Brunzell with a clothesline. Brunzell tries some basic stuff so Brown kicks him in the chest and beats on him in the corner. Brunzell misses a charge in the corner and the Ghetto Blaster (enziguri) gets the easy pin to tie things up. Brutus comes in and grabs Brown so Houston, one of the least intimidating guys ever, can come off the top with a double ax.

Houston misses a charge in the corner and Brown pounds on him like a stupid looking dancing white boy. A clothesline takes Houston’s head off and here’s Valentine. Make that Brown again and Valentine accidentally hits Brown. That ticks off Bad News and he walks off. That’s not a face turn. He just didn’t like anybody. Houston tries to steal a pin on Valentine but Greg is like boy please.

Off to Bass in a match that I think happened before in the NWA. A rollup gets two for Houston but he charges into another boot in the corner. That’s a popular move in this match. A middle rope cross body gets two for Sam and a forearm from Bass takes his head off for two. Houston’s monkey flip is countered into a powerslam and he’s gone, thank goodness. The guy is just not interesting or good at all.

Warrior comes in to fire the crowd up and attacks everyone left on the other team (Valentine, Bass and Honky vs. Warrior, Beefcake and Blazer at the moment). Honky comes in because he’s not that bright and there he goes, flying through the air off a shoulder tackle. Off to Bass who gets slammed down and hit with a Rocket Launcher from Blazer. Honky comes in and is cross bodied down immediately. A monkey flip and dropkick have Honky in even more trouble so it’s off to Valentine.

Owen gets crotched on the head of Valentine during a leapfrog but apparently Blazer has balls of steel because he suplexes Valentine down and drops a knee for two. Blazer goes up but Honky shoves him off, sending Owen down onto his knee. The Figure Four means a quick elimination by Valentine and we’re down to 3-2. Off to Beefcake vs. Valentine and Jesse mentions that these guys were not only a team but tag champions. Why is that such an afterthought?

Off to Bass who also has history with Beefcake but that isn’t mentioned here, despite it happening like three months before this. A headbutt keeps Beefcake down and it’s back to Elvis Man. His contribution is ramming Beefcake’s head into Bass’ boot and tagging in Valentine. Well no one ever accused him of being a ring general. After Warrior charges in like an idiot, it’s back to Honky for Shake Rattle and Roll, but Brutus backdrops out of it to start his comeback.

Back to Bass who hits a top rope clothesline to keep the advantage and brings in Honky who goes up. Beefcake punches him in the ribs because Honky is about as fast as Arn Anderson at going to the top. Beefcake wins a slugout and we get the eternally funny selling of an atomic drop by Honky. There’s the sleeper but Man dumps them to the floor and they fight to a countout.

This leaves us with Valentine and Bass vs. Ultimate Warrior. Gee I wonder what’s going to happen. A double clothesline puts Warrior down but Valentine can only get two. More double teaming works for a bit but Warrior gets to the ropes and starts shaking. Another double clothesline doesn’t work and an ax handle each gets the two pins to make Warrior the sole survivor.

Rating: C. Not the best match in the world but for a midcard match it was fine. Warrior was insanely over here (as well as insane in general but that’s another talk for later on) and the fans erupted for his comeback at the end. The rest of it is just ok and there’s nothing wrong with that. This was the right choice for an opener though.

Davis would job for another few months before heading back to refereeing full time in mid 1989. Like I said, there just isn’t enough skill in the ring to back up the heat he had built up. Once he lost all of his matches and the people he had screwed over beat him, Davis was just that guy that was crooked about a year ago, which really isn’t going to keep you over. It was a good idea for a character but there was a firm limit on how far it was going to go.

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This one might surprise you a bit.

When you think about it, there weren’t a ton of great title reigns this year. Most of the reigns were either transitional, short term, or really nothing all that special. Look at Havok with the Knockouts Title for example. The idea was to build her up for someone to build ala Lashley, but Havok wrestled something like five or six matches in total before dropping the title. That’s really hard to get behind you know?

Speaking of Lashley, we’ll start with his reign as TNA World Champion. Lashley’s reign was actually a huge surprise for me as he finally hit the level that WWE was looking for. Imagine that: a guy with an intimidating look, a great physique, great amateur skills and no talking skills is better suited as a heel. This was your old school monster heel run and it worked really well as Lashley destroyed every major face on the roster. I wasn’t crazy on Roode just getting another shot and taking the title, but it made him look like a world beater.

Off to the tag division, where we have some solid options.

Ascension held the NXT Tag Team Titles for just under a year and had almost no competition the entire time. This was another old school style run with shades of Demolition or the Legion of Doom: two big, strong guys who just beat you down while loving every minute of it. The only downside is the reign went on a bit too long and got repetitive, but the idea was solid and the title defenses were great.

Up on the main roster, we had the Usos doing the polar opposite. Instead of beating everyone down, they opted to just have one great, competitive match after another with their matches against the Wyatts and the Wrestlemania XXX pre-show blowing away a lot of the other tag team matches we’ve seen in the previous years. That being said though, the Usos’ reign just doesn’t feel epic. It’s entertaining, but comes off like Strike Force: good matches and chemistry, but it felt like a long transitional reign which took on a life of its own instead of something great.

One last tag team would be ReDRagon’s ROH Tag Team Title reign….but I don’t watch much ROH. I’ve heard good things but I can’t really comment on it when I’ve only seen two or three of their matches.

That leaves my choice for the win: Adrian Neville as NXT Champion. This one is a lot more simple as Neville won the title in a big match, had a series of major defenses and then dropped the title in a classic. The reign went on for the better part of a year and had every necessary element of a great title reign. Some of the others come close, but no one else nailed it like Neville did down in the best promotion going right now.

Here’s another major award with some last minute entrants.

We’ll start with the frontrunner for most of the year, mainly due to its build up: the Wyatt Family vs. the Shield at Elimination Chamber. These two teams had looked dominant for months coming up to the match and they finally stared each other down. It’s one of those moments where you just knew it was going to be great and then they blew the doors off the place at Elimination Chamber.

Daniel Bryan vs. HHH from Wrestlemania is way up there and the ending was perfect with HHH getting to chuckle at all the fans (myself partially included) who thought he would put himself into the title match. This isn’t something that’s going to hold up though, as it’s good but the show’s booking hurts it a bit. At the end of the day, there was no way Bryan wasn’t winning here, which brings things down. It’s still great, but I can’t say it’s the best match of the year.

We even get a TNA entry with the ladder match in the Tag Team Title series. I know Full Metal Mayhem gets the attention because it was the final match, but the ladder match was just a hair better. This was back to the TLC formula of take six guys and let them break a lot of stuff, including their bodies. It’s a total stunt show and that makes for some very entertaining matches.

I know this one wasn’t universally popular, but I have to mention WeeLC from Extreme Rules. When WWE does comedy well, it can be some of the funniest stuff you get. They NAILED this one and made what could have been the worst idea in history into something hilarious that was a highlight of the night. This isn’t really a serious contender but man alive it was funny.

Back to the first major show of the year with Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt. Here we have two guys just beating the tar out of each other for over twenty minutes in an outstanding opener. Wyatt beat Bryan, but it’s a match where the winner really doesn’t matter. Bray has so much potential, and the fact that he can back it up in the ring is a very important point.

I can’t go with Team Authority vs. Team Cena as a nominee but I’ll throw it in as an honorable mention. The last ten minutes actually had my heart beating fast and not being sure of what should have been a sure thing. Throw in Cena going out halfway through the match and it gets even better. Great match, including STING, but I’m not sure if it’s one of the best of the year.

What I am sure of though is how amazing Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro from NXT: Arrival was. These guys just know how to make things work with Sami as the ultimate underdog and Cesaro being able to do insane power moves that just blow your mind. It’s a hair beneath the 2/3 falls classic, but they got in most of the same spots and Cesaro going into Beast Mode at the end. He doesn’t go there often, but when he goes to that place, I see the superhero that people say is inside him.

It’s been too long since we’ve had a Shield match and HHH might bury me if I don’t mention him, so I’ll throw in Shield vs. Evolution in the elimination tag at Payback. They let the match go for a long time until we finally got to an elimination so the pin was a surprise. This was the old standard of let six guys beat the tar out of each other for half an hour with the young guys hitting one high spot after another and making the big comeback because the fans actually want to see them do it. In other words, they built up the drama and paid it off at the end. Wrestling 101 still works if you can believe that.

Now we’ll go to the other end of the spectrum with Bully Ray/Rockstar Spud vs. Austin Aries/Bobby Roode from One Night Only: Jokers Wild II. In short, this is the funniest match I’ve ever seen and you should watch it yourself. The key here: you can tell the guys in the match came up with the comedy themselves. Instead of inserting them into “funny” situations, the comedy flows naturally because it’s stuff that these people would logically do that is still funny. Over in WWE you see people doing things that are only being done because a script tells them to do it.

That brings us to the winner, which was the only match all year that I had to see. The build was perfect, the go home promo was perfect, the match was perfect, the execution was perfect, the aftermath was perfect, yet for some reason I only gave it an A. The match is of course Sami Zayn vs. Adrian Neville for the NXT Title at Takeover: R-Evolution. It’s a strong contender for Show of the Year and it was capped off by the Match of the Year.

We’ll continue our stretch of tag teams with the Orient Express.

Side note: I had this one scheduled for earlier in the month but I realized having Japanese heels on December 7 might get me in some trouble.

Now this one is actually a combination of two teams who are kind of stepbrothers in a way. We’ll be starting with AWA tag team Badd Company, comprised of Pat Tanaka and Paul Diamond. Here’s a match from the CWA (Memphis) on October 10, 1987.

Badd Company vs. John Paul/Ed Mattox

Tanaka rolls Mattox to the mat to start and sidesteps a dropkick. A kick to the ribs brings in Diamond as the regular team starts their back and forth tagging. Diamond misses an elbow and it’s off to Paul, who is quickly catapulted into a chop for the pin. Total squash.

Here’s an actual AWA match at SuperClash III.

Badd Company/Madusa Micelli vs. Wendi Richter/Top Guns

Ok quick recap here. Richter was the second biggest face in the WWF regardless of gender but left because of various issues. She recently beat Madusa for the AWA Women’s Title. Badd Company, the AWA tag champions, are more famous as Tanaka and Kato (Paul Diamond here, minus the mask) of the Orient Express in the WWF a few years later. All titles are on the line here as per the usual stipulations. The Top Guns are Derrick Dukes and Ricky Rice, both of whom suck. They’re the faces here. Oh and Badd Company/Madusa have none other than Diamond Dallas Page as their manager.

Richter gets a huge pop so Page, with hair longer than Shawn Michaels in 96, makes fun of Richter for getting a fluke win for the title and introduces his own team. Everything goes insane at first and genders have to match in this one. The good guys clear the ring and the Top Guns hit a double back elbow on Tanaka. Mike Enos, a future kind of star in the AWA and the guy that was in the ring when Hall jumped the guardrail in 1996, is the referee for some reason. He’s not a known wrestler yet but that’s him.

Ok now we’re down to sanity with Tanaka and Dukes in there. Dukes really likes to work on the arm. Long headlock goes on as the girls yell at each other. Dukes hits a dropkick and let’s try that headlock again. Diamond comes in and actually doesn’t get destroyed as Dukes plays face in peril for a bit. Diamond misses a charge in the corner and it’s off to the girls. They do the usual girls in the 80s stuff here that isn’t all that interesting or, you know, good. Everything breaks down again and Tanaka accidently kicks Madusa so Richter can pin her.

Rating: D+. Another pointless match here as they just did their thing for awhile and the guys meant nothing. I don’t think Rice was ever even in the match. The girls didn’t mean anything at this point but then again they didn’t for a long time. This went nowhere at all and was way too short to be anything of note.

Tanaka was brought over to the WWF in 1990 to be part of the tag team the Orient Express with Japanese veteran Akio Sato. Here’s one of their first matches in the company on March 19, 1990.

Orient Express vs. Demolition

Both teams do quick promos which are nothing special at all really. We’re in MSG again. Demolition used to be managed by Fuji so there’s some heat there. This is 2 weeks from Mania apparently. Stalling to start until we get down to Smash vs. Tanaka. It’s nearly a comedy bit to start as Tanaka keeps getting caught by punches and shots from Demolition after thinking he had escaped.

Kaito comes in and the stalling begins again. There’s the double teaming to take over and the Express takes over for all of 6 seconds. Back to Demolition with Smash using power to control here. It’s weird to see the faces dominating this long into a match. Double backdrop sends Tanaka flying. More double teaming takes over again, this time for a full 15 seconds. No the best way to start us off here for the Express.

Since it worked so well the first two times they double team again but this time with a cane shot to the back of Smash which actually works. In other words Fuji managed to do what his men couldn’t do in two tries. It’s weird to see these teams against each other for some reason. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them fight before. Hayes goes into a lecture about history and wars between the Japanese and the British for no apparent reason.

The crowd isn’t incredibly into this to put it mildly, mainly due to the Express having about a grand total of zero chance in this. Demolition realizes they’re one of the most successful teams of all time and starts hammering away. Off to Axe who hammers away on Tanaka until everything breaks down. They set for the Decapitator but Fuji interferes. Salt goes into Axe’s eyes and the fastest ten count ever ends this. Wow that was a terrible ending.

Rating: D+. Wow this was pretty bad. Was there ANY reason to give the win to the Orient Express here? The crowd seemed to hate it to put it mildly, so what was the point? Boring match too with Demolition never being in any danger it seemed. I don’t really get this one at all.

Here’s the start of their most famous WWF rivalry from Wrestlemania VI.

Orient Express vs. Rockers

Jannetty and Tanaka start things off and the Rockers take over with their usual speed stuff. Double teaming sends the Express out to the floor before things settle down a bit. Mr. Fuji hooks the top rope, sending Marty out to the floor. Back in again and Jannetty escapes a backdrop and makes the tag off to Shawn. A double superkick puts Tanaka down so it’s off to Sato. Tanaka kicks Shawn in the back and the Rockers are in trouble again.

A gutbuster gets two for Tanaka and a big kick to the face puts Shawn down again. Sato hits a top rope knee drop and it’s off to a nerve hold. Shawn comes back with a big old clothesline and a diving tag to Marty. Things speed up and we get some heel miscommunication. A big backdrop puts Tanaka down but Fuji breaks up the double fist. Marty goes after him and gets salt in the eyes for his efforts. He stumbles into the barricade and that’s a countout.

Rating: C+. Decent tag match here which would be topped by about a mile at the Rumble. These guys needed more time than this and a better finish to be awesome so this one was just ok. The Rockers would start getting awesome in a hurry after this with nearly two years before their famous split. The Express would only have a handful of PPV matches ever and this is the most recent that I’ve seen.

We need to establish the team a bit more though so here’s a match on Wrestling Challenge, July 8, 1990.

Orient Express vs. Hercules/Jim McPhearson

Hercules is about to hook up with Paul Roma as Power and Glory. Sato jumps Hercules to start so the power man casually gorilla presses him down. Seriously he barely looked like he was trying. A superkick drops Hercules though and McPhearson comes in to eat a superkick of his own. Tanaka adds a few kicks of his own before Sato plants Jim with a Batista Bomb for the pin.

Here are some REAL Americans vs. two evil Japanese men at Summerslam 1990.

Orient Express vs. Nikolai Volkoff/Jim Duggan

Duggan and Volkoff sing God Bless America and get jumped in a twist on the old foreigners’ gimmick. We start with the small Tanaka trying to match strength with Volkoff. Vince: “That wasn’t too bright.” Piper: “Yep, real dumb.” You can’t make it any simpler than that. Sato kicks away at Volkoff a bit but it’s hot tag to Duggan who cleans house and finishes Tanaka with the three point clothesline. This was nearly a squash.

The team was involved in a Survivor Series elimination match at Survivor Series 1990.

Alliance vs. Mercenaries

Nikolai Volkoff, Bushwhackers, Tito Santana

Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, Orient Express

This is during the Iraqi Sympathizer period for Slaughter and the idea here is military themed. Before the match, Slaughter tells Gene about having a Thanksgiving dinner with the Mercenaries and not having to be inconvenienced by being in the desert. That’s better than being in the Army and eating K-Rations right? This was a pretty edgy angle at the time. Stupid but edgy. This interview is in the arena with the Mercenaries’ music playing. That must be a pretty dull period for the crowd.

The Bushwhackers torment Boris to start and the flying forearm from Tito eliminates him in about 20 seconds. Sato comes in and is accidentally superkicked by Tanaka. The Battering Ram puts out Sato and it’s 4-2 inside of two minutes. Tanaka comes in and the forearm from Tito makes it 4-1 in less than 2:15. Volkoff pounds on Slaughter with his usual stuff but gets punched in the face for his efforts as Slaughter takes over.

After a long beating, Slaughter eliminates Volkoff with an elbow. There were about three minutes of beating in between there but there was absolutely nothing of note to talk about. The Bushwhackers double team Sarge for a bit but Slaughter beats them down and gutbusts Luke for an elimination. A clothesline takes out Butch about 30 seconds later and it’s one on one.

Tito immediately dropkicks Slaughter into the post and things speed up with by far the two most talented guys in the match in there. Tito hits a top rope forearm for two and stomps away even faster. Piper is trying not to curse and Slaughter slams Santana’s head into the mat. A neckbreaker and backbreaker combine for two on Santana.

After some more beating, Tito gets a quick forearm attempt but hits the referee by mistake. The forearm hits the second time but General Adnan (Slaughter’s manager/boss) hits Santana with the flag and Slaughter puts on the Camel Clutch. The referee saw the flag though and it’s a DQ win for Tito.

Rating: D-. Well that…..happened I guess. They went through seven eliminations inside of eleven minutes and the match was awful. Basically this could have been Slaughter vs. either Volkoff or Santana and gotten the same payoff. I have no idea what they were going for here, but my guess is that they had nothing else to fill in fifteen minutes with (the show only runs two hours and twenty minutes and we’ve got the ultimate dumb filler to go).

NWA fans will appreciate this one from Superstars on January 5, 1991. Here’s where the two teams come together: Sato decided to leave American wrestling and go back to Japan, allowing a masked man named Kato to fill in the spot. The man under the mask: Tanaka’s old Badd Company partner Paul Diamond.

Mulkey Brothers vs. Orient Express

The Mulkey Brothers, Randy and Bill, are best known as cult favorite jobbers from the NWA. Kato chops away at Bill to start before kicking him a bit low. The Express hits Haas and Benjamin’s jump over the partner onto Bill’s back before Tanaka chops Bill so hard that he (Tanaka) flips over. Back up and Kato superkicks Bill into a German suplex to give Tanaka the pin. That’s a standard Mulkey Brothers match.

From two days later on January 7, 1991.

Mr. Fuji/Orient Express vs. Legion of Doom

We play hide the foreign object for a bit with Fuji and then it’s off to Kato vs. Animal. Guess who does better in this case. Kato runs away a lot as the crowd is mostly silent here. The LOD throw Tanaka as high as anyone I’ve ever seen. This is one of those matches where stuff is kind of happening but nothing is going on if that makes sense. In short, it’s rather boring indeed.

All LOD so far as the Express hasn’t been able to get anything going at all. Hawk sends Kato to the floor and just stands there as he gets back in. Double teaming FINALLY slows down Animal a bit, including some salt into the eyes. Here’s Fuji who shoves Animal and leaves. The heel offense ends in about 20 seconds via a double clothesline and it’s off to Hawk. Crowd is pretty dead here. Doomsday Device ends this dominance quickly.

Rating: D-. Total and complete squash here as I think everyone expected. No point at all in having Fuji out there but they were trying to up the drama from zero to about .00001 or so and it didn’t work at all. The Express hardly ever won anything but they would get a bit better, especially against the Rockers. Bad match.

Now we get to the main event for this team at the 1991 Royal Rumble.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

The Express are Kato and Tanaka. Kato is a white guy named Paul Diamond in a mask pretending to be a Japanese guy. Shawn gets jumped to start and hit with a big double backdrop. Marty dropkicks Kato to the floor and superkicks Tanaka down as the Rockers take over. The Rockers hit stereo suicide dives to take the Express (popular names for tag teams no?) down on the floor.

The crowd is LOVING the Rockers here because they’re AMERICAN! Jannetty and Kato start things off with Kato getting caught in a headlock. Things speed up already and Marty controls with a headscissors on the mat. That gets turned into a backslide for two for Jannetty and we have a standoff. Marty makes the Express collide with each other before working on Tanaka’s arm.

Shawn comes in off the top with another shot to the arm but Tanaka comes back with a kick to the face and a chinlock. We get an overly complicated running the ropes spot which results in the Express having their heads rammed together. It’s still Tanaka vs. Shawn here and we go from a chinlock to a sleeper by Shawn. Marty tries to come in for no apparent reason, allowing Kato to blast Michaels in the back to give the Express control for the first time.

Everything breaks down and we get multiple do-see-do sequences, finally resulting in the Express being rammed into each other and being sent to the floor. Shawn busts out a kind of prototype 619 before the Rockers dive on both members of the Express in a cool spot. Back to Kato vs. Marty and we hit another chinlock. Shawn comes back in for a vertical suplex but Tanaka breaks up a monkey flip by guillotining Shawn from the apron.

Tanaka comes in and we get the World’s Greatest Tag Team spot of Tanaka jumping over Kato’s back to land on Shawn’s back as Shawn is draped over the ropes. A shot to Shawn’s throat keeps him down and it’s off to the nerve hold. Things slow down a lot as Kato comes in to chop away. A superkick puts Shawn down again (how appropriate) but he comes back by slamming Tanaka’s face down into the mat.

The place is really getting into the Rockers here as Kato takes his belt off. The Express tries to clothesline him with it but Shawn dives onto the belt to ran both Express members into each other. Hot tag brings in Marty to clean house and a powerslam gets two on Kato. Tanaka breaks up a backslide attempt so Shawn trips up Kato to retaliate. Everything breaks down again and Tanaka breaks up the Rocket Launcher. Kato slingshots Marty into a Tanaka chop and Jannetty is in trouble. They load it up again, but Shawn blasts Tanaka, allowing Marty to counter the slingshot into a sunset flip on Tanaka for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: B+. This would have been a masterpiece if they had cut out a minute or two of the chinlocks. Still though, this follows the Nitro formula to the letter: take four small guys, give them a long time, get an exciting match. That’s the perfect choice for an opener and it worked well here. The Rockers would continue to be awesome for the rest of the year until splitting in December in the famous Barber Shop incident.

And now for the Main Event V on February 1, 1991.

Legion of Doom vs. Orient Express

Did the Express ever win a major match? If they did I certainly don’t remember it. Animal and Kato start us off. Kato was Paul Diamond from the AWA that was very good in his time. LOD is MOVING out there for once. This is a very fast paced match and a nice change of pace for the usually dominant faces. Fuji throws salt at Animal and takes him down. Hawk comes in and beats everyone up badly and the squash is on. Doomsday Device ENDS Kato for the win.

Rating: B-. VERY energetic match here the whole five minutes which isn’t something you often hear about the LOD. The Express bumped like crazy pinballs on speed for Animal and Hawk and the result was a rather entertaining match. It’s not very good, but it’s one of those matches where it’s about the insanity and that worked well here.

Let’s try the same formula again in London on April 24, 1991.

Orient Express vs. The Rockers

This is from London. No entrance for the Express here, but this should be absolutely awesome. Fuji goes after the Rockers with the cane before we get going. The Rockers say they’re going back to the locker room and come back with a surprise. I’ve seen this before as the commentary is very familiar to me. This is likely a tape I rented a lot when I was a kid and watched it about 100 times or so.

The surprise is Andre the Giant. Well that works I’d think. It’s so weird with this commentary as I don’t remember watching this match in a long time and yet I can almost quote the commentary before it’s said. Granted there are a lot of shows I can do that with but you get the idea. Everyone gets in there at once and it’s kind of sloppy. I remember a classic between these teams at the 91 Rumble so this should be good.

Jannetty and Kato in the ring at the moment. Kato is a masked man if that helps you visualize things. This is after Wrestlemania as the Nasty Boys are the tag champions. The Rockers dominate the early part here which is rather weird. Marty comes in so I’d expect a good amount of time will pass before Shawn is in again. Marty totally misses a dropkick and it looks terrible.

I guess you could blame it on the time switch or the jet lag or something, but given the time it might be due to a heightened level of alcohol on the faces’ part. Scratch what I said earlier as here’s Shawn again. Shawn of course shows off a bit and we go back to an armbar. I’ve never gotten how heels can get away with switching when the referee’s back is turned and he’s just fine with it. Why can’t faces get away with stuff like that?

Roddy asks Vince something about an airline and Vince avoids it like he would avoid a Benoit sign. That was odd. This really isn’t much of a match at all. Andre has more or less done nothing at all out there either and it’s hurting the match a bit. At this point none of the tag guys mean anything so Andre is the star attraction here. When he’s weak, it makes things a bit pointless.

Marty is literally almost falling into the ring reaching for a tag which doesn’t connect. The Express does the World’s Greatest Tag Team’s double team move on the ropes. You’ll either get that or you won’t since I don’t want to explain it. Shawn takes out both of the Express guys and there’s the hot tag to Jannetty. Andre stops Fuji from interfering and pokes Kato with the cane. Double fist drops end it.

Rating: D. REALLY bad considering who was in there. This was a watchable match, but considering the classic they had at the Rumble, this was weak as hell. It was really just a long controlling sequence by the Express and then the Rockers making a very fast comeback before Andre did the real damage. That was all he did in the entire match and it just never worked at all. Bad match, all things considered.

One last go at the 1992 Royal Rumble.

Orient Express vs. New Foundation

It’s Owen/Neidhart as the Foundation here. Owen and Kato start thing off here. All four guys look like they’re in pajamas here. Owen takes him down to the mat by the arm before climbing up the ropes (not in the corner mind you but just the ropes) to backflip into the ring for an armdrag. A rana puts Kato down and it’s off to Neidhart vs. Tanaka. Tanaka gets run over as well, so here’s Owen to beat him up.

Tanaka gets caught by an enziguri and it’s back to Neidhart. The Express gets clotheslined down by Jim and Owen adds a double cross body for two. A spinwheel kick gets the same for Hart so Kato tries to come in sans tag. The distraction lets Fuji hit Owen with the cane to finally give the Express control. Tanaka hooks a chinlock as this isn’t exactly as fast paced as last year’s opener.

Owen gets to do Bret’s chest to the buckle bump before charging into a superkick in the other corner for two. After Kato comes in and does nothing, here’s Tanaka again for a headbutt to the abdomen. A chinlock goes nowhere but a headbutt gets two on Owen. Neidhart gets the tag but the referee doesn’t see it of course. The distraction allows Fuji to put the cane on the corner and Owen’s shoulder goes through it in a loud crunch.

It only gets two though as Owen gets a leg over the rope. Kato channels his inner Anderson with a hammerlock slam before it’s back to Tanaka. Owen finally escapes and things break down for a bit, resulting in a double clothesline for two on Hart. A superkick to the chest doesn’t put Owen down, but Tanaka jumping over Kato to land on Hart’s back does. Hart comes back with a dropkick to take out both members of the Express at once. There’s the hot tag to Neidhart and house is cleaned. Owen dives onto Kato before a Rocket Launcher gets the pin on Tanaka.

Rating: B-. Decent match here but it felt like they were trying to do the same match that worked so well in 1991. The problem was the Express wasn’t anything that good anymore and the team was gone almost immediately after this. Either way, the match wasn’t bad and it’s fine for an opener. The New Foundation never quite did anything until 1994 when Owen was a heel.

This is a really underrated combination. They went from a dominant tag team towards the end of their AWA run and then became a team that could have a good match against a string of competition in the WWF. With the Rockers, Legion of Doom, Demolition and the Harts around though, where in the world are they going to fit in?

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We’re looking at one of the forgotten tag teams of the 80s today with the Dream Team.

The Dream Team was comprised of Greg Valentine, Brutus Beefcake and manager Luscious Johnny V. Eventually Dino Bravo would replace Beefcake to form the New Dream Team and I’ll be looking at both combinations here.

We’ll start things off against a fairly good dream team in their own right on April 21, 1985.

Dream Team vs. Tito Santana/Ricky Steamboat

This is in Toronto. My goodness that’s quite a face team. Ricky vs. Beefcake starts us off. The ring is quickly cleared and Ricky hits what we would call a springboard forearm to take over. Off to Tito as the camera stuff is really all over the place here. Jesse sounds like he has a sore throat. Valentine and Santana stall a lot so Brutus slams Tito and then brings in Greg.

Valentine misses an elbow and it’s back to more stalling. I can barely recognize Jesse’s voice. That’s how messed up it is. Big clothesline puts Valentine down but the Figure Four is broken up. Greg takes over and works over the arm. Off to Bruti who can’t do much more than choke at this point. This is before the Expresses established the tag team formula so things are a bit different here.

Tito grabs an armbar but his back is to the wrong corner so he can’t get anything going. Back to Beefcake in control via a headlock. In a nice sequence, Beefcake points at Steamboat to distract the referee and Valentine gets in a shot to the back of Santana. With Ricky trying to get in, Santana gets on all fours and tries to bob and weave, eventually diving through Beefcake’s legs for the HOT tag to Steamboat.

Sleeper goes on Beefcake but he pretty easily breaks it up. Valentine comes in to hammer on Ricky and an eye rake slows the Dragon down. The Dream Team (not sure if they’re named that yet or if Steamboat is the Dragon) works him over and Valentine starts loading up the Figure Four but Steamboat small packages him for two. Steamboat fights out of the corner and makes ANOTHER hot tag to Santana. The forearm gets two on Valentine and everything breaks down. Ricky is sent to the floor but he comes back off the top to take Brutus out. Santana counters an atomic drop, hooks the leg and the Figure Four ends this.

Rating: B. Great old school tag match here and more proof that you don’t need some big long back story to have a great match. These four had no history together outside of Valentine beating Santana for the IC Title and that was like 6 months prior to this. Very fun wrestling match here and we didn’t need Teddy Long to book it.

They picked up the Tag Team Titles from the US Express and defended them against the British Bulldogs on September 10, 1985.

Tag Titles: British Bulldogs vs. Dream Team

Wrestlemania preview if you want to really stretch things. Dream Team has the belts. Valentine vs. Dynamite to start. Dynamite sends him flying to start and into the corner where he rams into Beefcake. Double tag brings in Smith and Bulldog. The Dogs speed things up and work over the arm. Davey fires off dropkicks for everyone but double teaming takes him down.

Not that it matters as he makes a tag just a few seconds later and Dynamite beats on the champs for a bit. Backbreaker gets two on Valentine. Dynamite goes up for presumably the Swan Dive (not called that yet) but Luscious Johnny V shoves him off the top for ANOTHER lame DQ finish.

Rating: C-. Same explanation as the previous tag match: these teams can have a good match if you give them the time but they cut it short here with the DQ ending. They would have by far and away the best match of the night at Wrestlemania. Beefcake wasn’t much at this point which is why they put him in there with Valentine who could more than carry a match.

Here’s their first televised defense at Saturday Night’s Main Event #2.

Tag Team Titles: Dream Team vs. Tony Garea/Lanny Poffo

Garea is an old timer and five time Tag Team Champion. Poffo is more famous as the Genius and Randy Savage’s brother. Valentine easily slams Lanny down and works on a headlock before tagging in Brutus. Poffy quickly fights back and drops both guys before getting two off a moonsault to Beefcake. The champs work over Poffo in the corner but he finally dives over and tags in Garea. Tony speeds things up for a bit and takes over until Beefcake gets in a cheap shot from the apron, allowing Valentine to put on the Figure Four to retain the titles. Windham and Rotundo didn’t do a thing.

Rating: D+. Total squash again here with the champs never being in anything resembling danger. Then again they were in there against a couple of jobbers so the ending never was in much doubt. The division was about to take off in another year or so with the Dream Team being one of the last teams of the old era.

Here’s a rematch with the former champs on November 9, 1985.

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.

More ex champions on December 14, 1985.

Dream Team vs. Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff

Both teams here have lost the tag titles at Mania so they have that in common. Also this is the rare heel vs. heel pairing. This might be in Philly but I‘m not 100% sure. Oh ok this is before Mania 2 so the Dream Team (Beefcake/Valentine) are the champions. Off to Beefcake who gets caught in the other evil corner. Nikolai hammers away on him and wins a brief power struggle.

I think the champs are the de facto faces here. Valentine has a little bit better luck against the Russian so it‘s off to Sheik. He hooks an abdominal stretch and Gorilla still finds something to complain about with it. The Sheik goes aerial with a dropkick of all things and gets two. Brutus gets the tag and this match is boring me to death. The not yet Barber misses a middle rope fist to Volkoff and it‘s time for a bearhug to waste more time. Camel Clutch by Sheik is broken up and Valentine comes in, as does everyone else. And there‘s the lame double DQ. At least it‘s over.

Rating: D-. This was one of the lamest matches I‘ve seen in years. Just boring all around and the whole thing didn‘t work at all. The Dream Team was straight up boring but would be together until Mania 3 because the fans hadn‘t suffered enough I guess. Just a horrible match and terribly boring.

We need another Bulldogs match! From Saturday Night’s Main Event V.

Tag Team Titles: British Bulldogs vs. Dream Team

The Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid, managed by Lou Albano) are challenging and the Dream Team comes out to We Are The Champions. We get a quick pre-recorded bit from the Dream Team, who say the Bulldogs’ recent non-title victory doesn’t mean anything. Thankfully Vince pointed out that it was pre-recorded because I never would have figured out how the team could be in the ring and on the arena floor at the same time.

Davey atomic drops Valentine to start and a Dynamite headbutt gets two. A suplex brings Greg back inside for the same and the Bulldogs are rolling early. They drag Beefcake in to work him over as well, including Davey lifting him up by the arm in a nice power display. A gorilla press slam gets two and Dynamite’s belly to back suplex gets the same. Greg tries to fight back but eats a dropkick to put him right back down. Everyone heads outside for a staredown and we take a break.

Back with Beefcake getting trapped in the Bulldogs’ corner again for a missile dropkick from Davey Boy. Brutus pounds him down though and gives it back to Valentine to try the Figure Four but Dynamite makes a quick save. The Bulldogs are in trouble for the first time and a shoulder breaker gets two on Dynamite. Beefcake comes in for two of his own and gets frustrated when he can’t get a pin. Kidd sends Beefcake into the corner and nails a missile dropkick for two and everything breaks down. In a smart finish, Valentine and Dynamite collide but Valentine’s leg lands on top for a pin to retain.

Rating: C+. This was one of the better matches in the series so far with both teams getting to look good and the ending protecting the challengers. The Bulldogs are one of the most revered teams of all time and their day would be coming soon. It’s a good match but the rematch at Wrestlemania would be even better.

And now for a six man on March 16, 1986.

Luscious Johnny V/Dream Team vs. Lou Albano/British Bulldogs

This is in MSG again and a few weeks before Mania II. Hammer vs. Smith to start us off. Atomic drop by Smith lets Albano get a shot in. Off to Dynamite and Valentine is in trouble. Back to Smith as it’s all Valentine for his team so far. By that I mean he’s the only one getting beaten up. Off to Brutus as I say that who is completely inept at this point. Johnny V, the manager, comes in now and is back out again quickly.

Valentine comes in off the top and we hit the chinlock. Off to Dynamite again who hammers away with forearms. Dynamite gets two off a knee to the ribs as Valentine is beaten on even more. Now Valentine takes over and hits a backbreaker for two. Is there a reason he’s doing the vast majority of the work for his team? Dynamite slams him off the top and we get Brutus for a change. Albano and Smith cheat to double team Brutus. Dynamite is double teamed at the same time so it balances out.

Brutus gets a neckbreaker on Kid for two. Suplex gets the same. Back off to the heel manager who Gorilla doesn’t remember being in earlier. That could have been taken very badly. Back to Valentine as Dynamite could be bleeding a bit. Valentine gets a front Piledriver (starting position of a regular one but kneels like a Tombstone) for two.

Figure Four goes on but Albano makes the save. Smith and Johnny V now and Smith cleans some house. Powerslam to the manager gets two as Valentine saves. The managers go at it but Albano isn’t legal. Falling powerslam to Valentine gets two. This is very fast paced but not in a good way. Valentine can’t suplex him so Smith does it instead. He isn’t delaying it yet though.

Off to Dynamite who is already hurt. Dynamite is like screw it and hammers away because he can. He hammers away and Valentine is in trouble as he has been for a lot of this match. Back off to Smith and a small package gets two for Davey. Back to Dynamite and a double clothesline gets two. Snap suplex by Dynamite and here comes everyone. Brutus, the illegal man which both commentators point out, is rolled up for the pin by Dynamite.

Rating: D. This tape is very hit or miss. The idea here was all messed up as the faces dominated for the most part here. Valiant and Albano were pretty useless in this but I think that was expected. Not a great match at all and not really entertaining. It helped set up Mania though so it did its job I guess.

They had to blow it off at Wrestlemania II.

Tag Titles: Dream Team vs. British Bulldogs

The Dream Team is Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine and they’re defending. For absolutely no apparent reason, the Bulldogs have Ozzy freaking Osbourne in their corner. Smith and Valentine start things off with Davey pounding away in the corner. Off to a wristlock before Dynamite comes in to send Valentine into the buckle for two. There’s the snap suplex for no cover and it’s back to Davey for the delayed vertical.

Greg gets in a few shots in the corner including a forearm to the back to take over and finally bring in Brutus. He cranks on the arm and is immediately gorilla pressed down by Smith. Dynamite comes in again and gets two off a small package. Beefcake makes a blind tag though and Valentine comes in off the top via another forearm to the back and the champions take over. Kid comes right back and pounds away before bringing Smith back in.

The Bulldogs hit a double headbutt for two for Kid but Brutus comes in sans tag to switch momentum right back. Valentine gets two off a kneeling piledriver but falls victim to the Arn Anderson self-crotching mistake. He continues the Horsemen theme by going up top and getting slammed down ala Flair as everything breaks down. Dynamite gets sent to the floor so Smith comes in with the powerslam (not yet the finisher) for two on Valentine.

Davey misses a charges into the post though and his shoulder is hurt in a hurry. Brutus comes in to work over the arm and hits a kind of hammerlock slam. Valentine hits a shoulderbreaker but pulls up before covering. In a VERY sudden ending, Dynamite gets on the top rope while still illegal and Davey rams Valentine’s head into that of Dynamite for the pin and the title.

Rating: B. It’s not a great or even a very good match but after nearly two hours of lame wrestling with nothing matches, this was a great breath of fresh air. The Bulldogs would be champions for the better part of a year while the Dream Team would survive for another year before splitting at the next Wrestlemania. Good stuff here though.

The Dream Team tried to get back on track at the Big Event.

Fabulous Rougeaus vs. Dream Team

The Dream Team is Valentine and Beefcake who Valiant usually manages. The Rougeaus are wearing red for some reason. Oh great and Valentine is too. We get an abdominal stretch and naturally Monsoon complains. The Rougeaus are one of those teams that just flows so well that it’s amazing to say the least. They’re also great high fliers that can just show off, kind of like the Hardys or something like that. Good night there are a lot of people there.

This is your standard 80s tag match which means that it’s pretty good. Beefcake just sucked back I the day though and this is no exception. He would be replaced by Bravo at Mania 3. After a very long and drawn out match which thankfully got enough time, we hit the brawl and Valentine has the figure four. In a SWEET ending, the illegal Rougeau gets a sunset flip on him as he bends over to put the hold back on for the pin. I love that.

Rating: B-. This was another fun and good match that did its job well. It’s the second longest match of the night after the draw from earlier and it’s one of the better ones on the card. It was solid but the really needed to get Bravo out there ASAP. Valiant is ticked off over that ending.

Then they tried to get the titles back at Saturday Night’s Main Event VII.

Tag Team Titles: British Bulldogs vs. Dream Team

The Bulldogs are defending and this is 2/3 falls again. Dynamite knocks Valentine around to start but Greg goes after the knee to take over. Beefcake hits a nice suplex and stays on the leg. Unfortunately he knocks Dynamite into the corner and it’s off to Davey to work on Beefcake’s arm. Dynamite quickly comes back in to face Valentine who drives in some elbows to the head and chest for two before slapping on the Figure Four. Beefcake cuts Davey off and Kid gives up for the first fall.

Before we go to a break, Gene tells us that Adonis may have separated his shoulder. We see a clip of Piper nailing him in the arm with the crutch, probably causing the injury. Back from the break with Valentine cranking on Kid’s knee even more. Beefcake draws in Bulldog with some strutting, allowing the challengers to get in some double teaming.

Greg misses a middle rope elbow though and the hot tag brings in Davey to clean house. The powerslam crushes Valentine but Brutus makes a save. That’s fine with Davey who puts Brutus in his fireman’s carry, allowing Dynamite to climb onto Beefcake’s back for the top rope headbutt to Valentine, tying things up.

The third fall starts with Valentine and a limping Dynamite with the Kid nailing his snap suplex. His knee is too banged up though and Greg drops an elbow to the back. We get the classic missed tag to Dynamite, allowing the villains to double team yet again. The Figure Four attempt is broken up and the hot tag connects, only to have Brutus take Davey down immediately. Back to Valentine for two off a suplex as the challengers keep making fast tags. A high knee gets two with Dynamite making the save as everything breaks down. Davey avoids a charging Beefcake in the corner and grabs a fisherman’s suplex to retain the titles.

Rating: B. This is the version of the Bulldogs that everyone talks about being one of the best tag teams of all time. The Dream Team was right there with them for this match though and the whole thing worked really well. They built up the drama at the end and the whole thing worked really well. Best match in the entire series so far.

Here’s another one against a fresh pairing.

Can-Am Connection vs. Dream Team

Can-Am is Tom Zenk/Rick Martel while the Dream Team is Valentine/Beefcake. Martel takes over quickly on Valentine, working the arm. Off to Zenk who works on the arm as well. We’re in MSG if you’re curious. Luscious John jumps on commentary for a second to brag. The team with the Canadian on it keeps up its advantage. Valentine manages to snake eyes him onto the top rope to take over.

Off to Beefcake and the former champs take over. Off to a chinlock and things speed up a bit. Brutus gets caught in a rollup for two. Martel starts fighting back and punches Valentine down. When all else fails, HIT HIM IN THE FACE! And never mind as the American hits an Irish on the Canadian into the corner. Suplex gets two. Figure Four is countered into a small package but Martel still can’t escape.

Back to Beefcake who manages to give up the tag. Listen to that pop for a hot tag! When’s the last time you heard something like that? Zenk cleans house and dropkicks Valentine down. Brutus takes him down again though and it’s back to the Dream Team in control. There’s an abdominal stretch by the Hammer. Gutbuster brings in Beefcake as they work on Zenk’s ribs and abdomen.

Zenk keeps bridging out of pin attempts. This match is getting some serious time. Double clothesline puts Zenk and Greg down. Valentine puts on a front facelock and Brutus distracts the referee so the tag doesn’t count. Elbow drop misses for Valentine and they do the blind tag thing again. That’s a rarity. Everything breaks down and the Dream Team hits a double belly to back suplex. There’s the Figure Four but Martel hits a slingshot splash for the totally illegal pin.

Rating: B. Long match here and it worked pretty well I thought. This is something you can’t see on TV due to the time but it worked well here. It also plays forward the whole Beefcake is the weak link idea of the team which led to their split. The crowd was way into this too. Good stuff.

Then the final match at Wrestlemania III.

Dream Team vs. Rougeau Brothers

The Dream Team is Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine but they’ve been having problems lately. Dino Bravo and Johnny V are with them here. Ray and Brutus start things off with Ray sending Brutus into the Rougeau corner for some double teaming. Off to Valentine as the Rougeaus tag in and out multiple times. Jacques finally sticks around for a bit and misses a cross body out of the corner.

Greg drops a bunch of elbows and puts on the Figure Four as Bobby Heenan comes into the commentary booth. Jacques gets to the rope before reversing a piledriver so he can tag Ray. Whle this is going on, Bobby and Gorilla argue about midgets. Ray puts Greg in a sleeper and Brutus’ save goes awry. Valentine gets caught in the Rougeau Bomb but Dino comes in off the middle rope though with a shot to Ray’s back, giving the Dream Team the pin.

Rating: C-. This was all angle rather than the match. The Rougeaus were a talented team and looked solid out there while the Dream Team looked like a relic of the past. Thankfully this would be the end for them as Bravo would replace Beefcake immediately, although the New Dream Team never went anywhere.

Here’s a New Dream Team amtch on June 23, 1987.

Rougeau Brothers/Brutus Beefcake vs. Dream Team/Johnny Valiant

This is a dark match from a Superstars taping in Indianapolis. Ray vs. Dino to start us off. Dino keeps running as you would expect him to. Valentine tries to cheat by holding Ray but Ray avoids the jumping knee. The place ERUPTS on something that simple. It’s amazing how you never see that anymore. Beefcake comes in and goes for Greg’s hair, resulting in the heels congregating on the floor.

Valiant, a manager remember, hides on the floor. Beefcake gets caught in the corner and even Valiant gets in some time on offense. Beefcake grabs a sleeper on Valentine but Valiant makes the save. Both Rougeaus come in and pound on Bravo as the place loses its mind. Boston Crab by Ray is broken up by Valentine, which draws Ray into the bad corner.

Back to Greg who gets a shoulderbreaker for two. In a pretty impressive power display, Ray counters a piledriver into the position for an Alabama Slam, but instead he walks towards his corner with Valentine on his back. Greg doesn’t let him get the tag but still it was impressive. Ray is on the floor and we’re clipped to a later point of him on the floor. Bravo drops another elbow and we’re clipped to Valentine in there instead.

Back to Bravo and Dino hammers away. This is the WWE 24/7 version so the big WWF Superstars of Wrestling banner is censored. Off to Johnny V and they just kind of let Ray tag in Brutus. He and Jacques clean house and it all breaks down. The heels are all thrown together and a pair of dropkicks send the non-managers to the floor. Valiant is put in the sleeper and we’re done.

Rating: C. This was fine. You never see stuff like this in modern wrestling and that’s a shame. There’s nothing too bad here and it was just a six man tag. The fans get to be happy and the faces get a win. There’s no bigger plan here and none of the guys really seem to be all obsessed about moving up the card. All that matters here is getting a win. Why can’t we see more of that?

We’ll wrap it up with one of their last matches before quietly splitting. From October 23, 1987.

Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. New Dream Team

In France still and the New Dream Team is Bravo/Valentine. We have 11 minutes in the tape to go. I can get through this. I know I can. Joined in progress for no apparent reason. Ray is in trouble and the fans cheer for the French boys. Valentine gets caught with a knee to the balls so Bravo comes in again. Time for a bearhug to keep the high level of this tape going. A piledriver is countered but Jacques can’t get a tag in.

Valentine mocks wanting to box Jacques for no apparent reason. The beating goes on like six minutes and Bravo hits his side suplex finisher on Ray but it’s not a finisher yet I don’t guess as Ray pops up and takes Bravo down. There’s the hot tag and everything breaks down. Sleeper to Valentine but Bravo breaks it up. A figure four is attempted but Ray sunset flips Valentine for the pin.

Rating: D. It’s a bit better, but good night would it have killed them to give us ANY bigger named team? Horribly dull match and I don’t even want to think about how much longer this could have been. Weak match but given how weak the teams were in there (bad time for the Rougeaus at this point) and a perfect ending to an AWFUL tape.

The Dream Team is an interesting combination as they’re kind of bridging two generations. Before them we had the US Express and the Soul Patrol and the Wild Samoans and teams like that. They’re talented, but things weren’t quite as polished as they were later. Then came teams like the British Bulldogs and the Hart Foundation and the Rockers who took the division to its peak. The Dream Team kind of gets lost in the shuffle, which is a shame as they were a very solid pair in their own right. If you like 80s wrestling, you’ll like these guys.

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