Monday Nitro #176
Date: February 15, 1999
Location: Entertainment Hall, Tampa, Florida
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

It’s the last Nitro before SuperBrawl and things are starting to get a bit more insane. The main stories coming out of last week are Roddy Piper winning the US Title and Hollywood Hogan being especially evil. Also of note is the Tag Team Title tournament, which has a lot of teams left and only two shows to go before the finals on Sunday. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Scott Steiner vs. Diamond Dallas Page with Steiner going after Kimberly and throwing her out of a running car last week.

The announcers tell us that Kimberly is recovering at an undisclosed location.

Nitro Girls.

Tony updates us on the tag team tournament. For Benoit and Malenko to win, they’ll have to win five times in a row this week. Hennig and Windham are already in the finals on Sunday.

Arn Anderson destroys Disco Inferno in the back but security takes him out in handcuffs.

Eric Bischoff is a chauffeur this week. Flair and some businessmen like his little hat. Bischoff has to open the door for them.

Opening video.

We look at Piper winning the US Title last week.

Jerry Flynn vs. Saturn

Saturn is still in the dress. Tony keeps talking about the tournament. Benoit and Malenko will face Dave Taylor/Fit Finlay with the winners facing Mike Enos/Bobby Duncum Jr. later tonight. They trade hammerlocks to start until Flynn fires off some kicks to take over. Saturn comes back with a modified ax kick for two before putting on a leg lock, sending Jerry running into the ropes. Off to a modified ankle lock but Jerry makes it to the ropes again. Saturn doesn’t let go so Jerry crawls up the ropes and kicks Saturn in the head to escape.

They slug it out until Saturn kicks him down again but can’t follow up. A legsweep puts Saturn down again and Jerry puts on a cross armbreaker. Saturn stands up to break it and the fans still aren’t all that interested. A springboard cross body gets two for Saturn but he gets caught by a spinwheel kick in the corner. Saturn hammers away in the corner but Scott Dickinson gets on the apron for a distraction. Jericho comes in with a kendo stick, only to walk into a suplex. Flynn spin kicks Saturn down for the upset pin.

Rating: D. Why is this feud still going and why in the world am I supposed to care about Scott Dickinson? The match was more of Flynn using all of his kicks and not being interesting and then it’s about a crooked and suspended referee. Why is that supposed to be interesting? I’d love an answer to that question. WWF is coming off Rock vs. Mankind in a last man standing match and Big Show debuting to break up Austin vs. Vince the previous night, and WCW stars with a freaking referee story while having Saturn wear a dress and fight Jerry Flynn. This company makes my head hurt.

Speaking of stories that haven’t died for some reason, Bischoff is still being tortured by bad acting from the “businessmen”. This is used as a tie-in to Will Sasso from MadTV wrestling Bret Hart tonight. Flair gets a call about Arn getting arrested. With the privacy screen up, Bischoff calls his “guys”, saying he’ll be there soon.

Clip of Mongo getting blinded last week.

Clip from MadTV, which we saw last week.

Juventud Guerrera/Psychosis/Blitzkreig vs. Super Calo/El Dandy/Hector Garza

Lucha rules, meaning rolling to the floor counts as a tag. Larry doesn’t like the rules changing but Tony says rules don’t matter anyway. Blitzkreig works on Calo’s arm to start but Calo sidesteps a moonsault and elbows him in the face. Tony tells us about Rey Mysterio getting beaten up by Lex Luger before the show came on the air as the fans chant for Goldberg.

A double tag brings in Garza to face Psychosis with Hector nailing a nice superkick. Garza misses a top rope cross body but reaches out and grabs Psychosis for an armdrag. It might have been an armdrag all along but it looked awesome. Juvy and Dandy come in to trade slaps before Dandy takes over with a hard right hand. Juvy comes right back by rolling up Dandy’s body into a faceplant as everything breaks down for a few seconds. In the melee, Calo gets in a cheap shot to Guerrera, allowing Dandy to hook a chinlock.

Garza goes to the corner but gets slammed down, triggering another triple teaming to the fans’ delight. Blitzkreig comes in and avoids a splash in the corner as we take a break. Back with Psychosis holding Calo in a leg scissors on the mat. Juvy comes back in with some dropkicks but he knocks Calo into his corner for a tag to El Dandy. The jam-up guy goes after the leg before it’s off to Garza for more of the same.

Hector misses a charge into the corner and it’s off to Blitzkreig who stomps Garza into the corner for a tag to Calo. Psychosis comes in as well and takes Calo down, setting up a powerbomb with Juvy adding a simultaneous guillotine legdrop for two. Calo rolls to the floor so it’s back to Garza who ges Stunned across the top rope, followed by a springboard missile dropkick for two. Dandy is knocked to the floor but Guerrera botches Air Juvy.

Garza dives onto Dandy for no apparent reason before Psychosis dives onto Garza and Guerrera, allowing Blitzkrieg to hit a springboard spinwheel kick for two on Calo. Bliztkrieg is sat on the top rope but Calo falls off the corner. Back in and Calo hurricanranas Blitzkreig out of the corner but Blitzkrieg doesn’t flip and just jumps down to the mat while Calo goes flying. A Phoenix Splash from Blitzkrieg is enough to pin Calo.

Rating: D. What the heck was THAT? This match ran nearly twenty minutes and might as well have been a 1970s six man tag for the first fifteen or so minutes. The ending started to pick up a bit when they weren’t hitting their own partners or botching spots. Why in the world would you have luchadors do a bunch of mat wrestling? It’s like hiring LeBron James to paint your house. You’re wasting the talent. Also the lucha rules were used like twice. This was a mess and more confusing than anything else.

We’re in the hotel where the Blonde is in a towel and asks the cameraman to get her fresh towels and lunch. She’s much less sweet here.

A helicopter spotlight is on a limo, presumably carrying Flair, the businessmen and Bischoff. Some Hummers are following the limo but Flair tells the businessmen that it’s fine. The limo pulls over and two men in black clothes and ski masks (one is tall with long perfect hair sticking out of the back, meaning it’s probably Nash) carrying a pipe come up to the door. Another guy, clearly Hogan, tells the businessmen to get out. Flair hits Hogan but backs off from Nash with the pipe.

The spotlight is on them as the Hummers circle around them. Hogan gets back up and nails Flair as five other guys all in black get out and beat up Flair. Hogan whips Flair with the NWO weightlifting belt as some of the other guys hold him. They all put their fists together and Hogan says Flair isn’t making it to SuperBrawl.

One of the guys takes off his mask to reveal Buff Bagwell. Nash holds Flair so Hogan can hammer away as Stevie Ray and Vincent have taken off their masks too. The beating just keeps going and Hogan has hurt his hand. Everyone gets in a shot and Nash puts on Flair’s tie. More whipping ensues and Hogan again says Flair isn’t making it to SuperBrawl. Flair is left laying after this went on for over ten minutes.

Nitro Girls. The announcers make no mention of what we just saw, which is the rule of thumb anymore with these segments.

Same video on the tag team tournament. This includes talking about teams that have already been eliminated. The SuperBrawl graphic at the end also says that the show is “tomorrow, February 21.”

Tag Team Title Tournament: Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko vs. Fit Finlay/Dave Taylor

The winners face Mike Enos and Scotty Riggs tonight and the losers are eliminated. Yes Scotty Riggs, as the tournament has been changed again. Assuming the winners of that face Adams and Horace on Thunder, Van Hammer and Kaz Hayashi have been eliminated with just one loss. Finlay drives a shoulder to Benoit’s ribs in the corner to start before cranking on somehting like a Crossface.

Benoit fights back with a headlock before hiptossing the Irishman down. A double tag brings in Malenko vs. Taylor with absolutely nothing happening before it’s back to Benoit who gets his arm worked on even more by Dave. Back to Finlay who drops Benoit throat first across the top rope and out to the floor where Taylor gets in some shots of his own. Malenko comes back in and suplexes Finlay down. It’s strange to have the commentators not mentioning what happened before the match started.

We take a break and come back with Taylor suplexing Dean for two. Taylor rips at his face a bit before Finlay slams Dean face first onto the apron. He drops Dean throat first across the barricade like he did to Benoit with the ropes earlier. Benoit tries to come in, allowing Finlay to get in some shots of his own. Finlay misses a charge into the post and the hot tag brings in Benoit. Chris cleans house with the running clothesline and snap suplex for two. Finlay picks him up for a tombstone but Dean breaks it up with a dropkick. Malenko comes back in sans tag and avoids a Taylor charge in the corner, setting up the Cloverleaf for the submission.

Rating: C-. This felt a step off the whole way through. It didn’t help that the winners were pretty obvious given that Windham/Hennig are waiting in the finals already. The match was long again but these guys are more capable of filling in a match that long. Still not great but this show has been off all night.

Goldberg video.

We see Kimberly being thrown out of the car again last week.

Back from a break with the Nitro Girls standing at the announcers’ desk to talk all serious about what happened to Kimberly. Heenan: “Are they going to dance?”

We recap Bret losing the US Title last week thanks to Will Sasso. This sets up the following.

Bret Hart vs. Will Sasso

This is also due to Hart “breaking character” when filming MadTV and attacking Sasso. I’ve seen the clip a few times and I thought that was the joke. Thankfully Tony told me what the real idea was supposed to be because it was really badly explained. Sasso, from MadTV mind you, is overweight and comes out with another cast member named Debra Wilson. Bret destroys Sasso to start and gets a chair to sit down in the middle of the ring. Sasso gets beaten up on the floor but Wilson takes the chair from Hart…..and turns on Sasso by hitting him with the chair. Back in and the Sharpshooter ends this.

Rating: F. What the heck am I even watching anymore? What purpose did this serve? Better question: how does this make me want to buy SuperBrawl? This was Bret Hart beating up a fat guy with help from an actress I’ve never heard of. I don’t remember MadTV being a big deal at this point, but did it ever warrant this kind of time on a wrestling show?

No one comes out to save Sasso or confront Hart, making this even more meaningless. Unless I missed it on an earlier show, the time and date of Bret’s appearnace on MadTV was NEVER mentioned.

The NWO arrives with Hogan still wearing the ski mask. They come in through the crowd and over the barricade so Hogan can talk about being from Hollyhood. He sends the rest of the team to the back to have a party and finally lifts the mask. Hogan is willing to give Flair his title shot tonight because Flair is in the back covering up the gray in his hair. He counts to ten and of course Flair doesn’t make it out.

At eight though, Roddy Piper answers the count and says he’s Hogan’s reality check. Hogan is fighting him instead and the match is on right now with the World Title on the line.

WCW World Title: Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

One might suggest that this is a match that should be announced more than five seconds in advance. Then again one might suggest that this show has been a huge mess but that’s a much bigger problem to solve. It’s a brawl to start with Piper very slowly driving down to the mat. As in I thought something was wrong with the video. Hogan is knocked to the floor and Piper follows him out with right hands before sending him into the post.

Back in and an atomic drop has Hogan in even more trouble before a right hands gets two for Piper. Hogan goes for the leg to take Piper to the floor for some choking. A hard chair shot to the back has Piper in even more trouble and Hogan whips him over the back with the weightlifting belt. Even more choking ensues but Piper comes back with belt shots to take over. Roddy puts on a sleeper but Hall comes in with the tazer for the DQ.

Rating: D. This was exactly what you would expect from Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper in 1999. It lasted less than five minutes and was a bunch of non-wrestling before the NWO came in for a disqualification. That’s a great way to treat your US Champion a week after he won the title, because Scott Hall of all people needs the title match coming up right?

Piper gets beaten up and Hall puts on the kilt for a little dance.

Over an hour later, someone in a cowboy hat finds Flair in the field and carries him to his jeep. The guy doesn’t look like anyone in WCW so I guess we’re supposed to believe he’s just a random guy.

Scott Steiner is suing Diamond Dallas Page for $1 million.

Luger and Liz talk about Konnan and say nothing of note.

Video on Piper vs. Hall.

Tag Team Title Tournament: Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko vs. Mike Enos/Scotty Riggs

Losers are eliminated. Riggs stomps on Malenko in the corner to start but Dean stomps away back in the other corner. Scotty comes back with his dropkick and a running corner splash. Off to Enos vs. Benoit with Chris easily taking him down with a drop toehold. The Horsemen take their turns on Mike until he drives Dean into the corner to take over. Riggs puts on a chinlock followed by a knee to the ribs. Enos comes back in for his own chinlock before Riggs changes without a tag and puts on the third chinlock in about ninety seconds.

We take a break and come back with the guy that saved Flair working on his engine. Flair tries to get out of the truck but the driver puts him back in.

Back with Benoit stomping away on Riggs’ leg before it’s off to Malenko for more of the same. Enos gets in a cheap shot to take over as this boring match continues. Malenko goes up top but dives into a powerslam for no cover. Instead it’s back to Riggs for the two count and everything breaks down. Riggs gets another near fall off a forearm to the back of Dean’s head followed by a belly to back suplex for the same. The fans seem really bored by this. Riggs misses a dropkick and the hot tag brings in Benoit. The Horsemen whip them together and Benoit counters a suplex into the Crossface to advance.

Rating: D+. The match wasn’t bad but it was incredibly boring. At the end of the day, I need someone better than Riggs and Enos to make me interested in a match, especially when it’s obvious that the Horsemen are going to win. Benoit and Malenko work well together, but I really wish we could just have a regular tournament so they don’t have to waste so much time getting through these horrible opponents.

The truck keeps going. The announcers haven’t mentioned any of these videos all night.

A much more cheerful Blonde is in a short robe on a bed and says next time will be better than this one.

Buffer comes out to announce the main event, even though there are no matches left scheduled. The NWO comes out in street clothes and Hogan tells Buffer to get out. He says Flair is hiding in his dressing room, but he’ll give Flair a twenty count to get out here. The referee counts and Tony sees the truck pulling up and Flair falling out of the door.

Ric pulls an axe handle off the back of the truck and staggers into the arena as Tony is completely lost. Heenan thinks Flair is drunk. Tony actually uses his brains and sees the bruises, saying Flair looks like he’s taken a horrible beating. Flair gets in the ring and swings the handle until Benoit and Malenko come in and try to help. Hogan and Bagwell beat Flair down on the floor as the rest of the NWO subdues the Horsemen.

Hall goes through the curtain and says “now you see how it’s done. Don’t mess it up” before firing up the tazer to end the show.

Overall Rating: Agoobwa. This show was such a mess that I have no idea how to rate it. How could ANYONE have looked at this show and said it was a good idea? I knew things were going to get bad but this show sent the company flying off a cliff, bounced as it hit the ground and lit on fire, setting of an explosion to send its crispy remains into orbit where aliens blasted them into the sun. I don’t even know where to start with the problems this show had.

For one thing, WHY DIDN’T THE ANNOUNCERS SEE WHAT HAPPENED? How does that make things more entertaining or interesting? We saw the whole thing and know what happened (which I’ll get to later), but the announcers have no idea? They don’t see the Blonde in the hotel either, but at least that (presumably) isn’t stuff that’s happening live. It doesn’t add anything because the fans live are just as confused as they are (assuming the videos aren’t shown in the arena, though that would add even more insanity to this) and the TV audience knows what’s going on.

The lack of wrestling was a major problem tonight too. There were six matches on the entire show. Two of them were glorified extended squashes with Benoit/Malenko having to go through two teams that had no chance. Another match saw Hogan vs. Piper and set wrestling back ten years. Bret Hart beat up an actor which led nowhere, Jerry Flynn won a match and the luchadors wrestled a technical, mat based match until the last three minutes. This is also ignoring all the time being wasted, including a ten minute beatdown which could have been covered in about two minutes.

How in the world WCW thought this was a good idea or would make people want to buy Sunday’s show is beyond me. Over on Raw, the Rock and Mankind were having a good ladder match for the WWF Title. In case you’re wondering, Raw beat Nitro by two full points in the ratings for the worst drubbing Nitro had ever received when it was three hours compared to Raw’s two. If this isn’t the worst Nitro to date, I can’t remember the one that tops it. Absolutely horrible show that felt nothing like how the show is normally presented and that’s not a good thing.

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Today is one of the toughest men in wrestling history: Meng.

Meng was sent to Japan by the King of Tonga to study sumo wrestling. When that dried up, Meng entered professional wrestling. After a few years in Montreal, he made his way to the WWF as King Tonga. We’ll start on June 14, 1986.

Big John Studd vs. King Tonga

Studd immediately slams him during the opening bell to take over. Tonga goes for a slam but it gets countered. That’s the whole point of the match: Tonga wants to slam Studd. Off to a chinlock but Tonga comes back with some martial arts. Another slam attempt sends them tumbling to the floor and it’s a double countout. No rating again but this was a one move match.

They brawl on the floor post match with Tonga getting the better of it. The brawl and teasing going back in goes on longer than the match. Now they get back in and brawl as there’s a referee in there for some reason. Tonga headbutts him to the floor and that’s enough for John so he takes a countout.

Tonga would soon change his name to Haku and join forces with Tama to form the Islanders. They received a Tag Team Title shot on Superstars, February 21, 1987.

WWF Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. The Islanders

The Islanders are faces here with Tama being awesome and Haku being newly named that. Danny Davis is introduced as the newest member of the Foundation. Egads what shorts. That’s very disturbing. He would switch to regular tights soon enough. Bret and Tama start so that’s the best combination to go with. That reverse leap frog is just awesome. It always has been and it always will be.

Hillbilly Jim pops in to say nothing of note. The heels shockingly cheat. Yeah I didn’t see that coming either. It’s weird to think that Tama and Haku would be heels so quickly. Haku got a hot tag. That’s just weird to type. He managed to botch throwing a guy to the floor. That’s hard to do. He hits a solid superkick if nothing else. Crowd is losing it over this. And then Bret cheats so Anvil gets the pin. Oh ok Davis shoved Haku off the top. That makes things better.

Rating: B-. Far too short to be anything great but at the same time, this was a quick formula match with the crowd eating it up. For a match this short to have that much heat, that’s very impressive. Not great of anything but it’s ok, especially for a match that didn’t get a ton of time.

Next up we’ve got a singles match from October 6, 1987.

Tito Santana vs. Haku

That…..doesn’t sound half bad actually. This would be right before Strike Force won the titles. Martel and Tama are with their respective partners and we’re in Milwaukee. Tito starts fast, probably fueled on a few burritos. An elbow to the top of Haku’s head and the future Meng hides on the floor for a bit. Back in and Tito rams Haku’s head into the mat which shouldn’t hurt but you get the idea.

The fans are WAY behind Tito. Off to the armbar now as Luscious Johnny runs down Martel’s face for some reason. They seem to botch a hip toss but Tito IMMEDIATELY shifts into a backslide attempt. That was so fast of a transition it was unreal. It gets two and Haku charges right back into the arm drag and armbar. Haku rakes the eyes and STILL can’t get anything going.

Tito goes for the knee and Haku gets to the ropes. Tama offers some advice and apparently he would be a better manager than Heenan, as the advice pays off in the form of a shot to the throat of Tito. Haku finally takes over and gets a shoulderbreaker for two. A charge into the corner eats shoes though and here comes Tito. I’d rather eat some Taco Bell but you can’t get everything. Big backdrop (where’s Vince to say HIGH elevation) sets up the forearm but Tama goes up top for the DQ as Martel makes the save. Double DQ apparently.

Rating: C-. Not bad here and I’d love to see these guys have some more time and an actual story to work with. It’s power vs. speed with one of the best speed guys you’ll ever seen. Not too shabby here as Tito and Martel were on their way to the titles, apparently three weeks after this. Or one match, whichever you prefer.

From Philadelphia on December 5, 1987. Most of these don’t have any real story to them so enjoy the random matches.

Tag Titles: Strike Force vs. Islanders

No word on if this is for the titles or not but I don’t know why it wouldn’t be. The Islanders jump the champions to start us off and Strike Force gets slammed. Martel vs. Haku starts us off officially here. Head Knocker by Tito is blocked but he speeds things up and sends Tama to the floor. Back off to Martel who hammers away.

Haku uses power to take over as we’re straight into power vs. speed here which is always awesome. Diving kneedrop misses Martel and it’s off to Santana. Strike Force tags in and out very fast. The heels resort to EVIL cheating to take over and beat on Santana for awhile. Tama was a guy I always liked that just kind of disappeared after the Islanders split. Shame too.

A couple of backbreakers by Haku as he shows off a bit. The guy was certainly strong. Ah yes this is a title match. I thought it was. Back off to Tama and Tito still can’t make the tag. Martel snaps and comes in for a bit but it causes Tito to get caught in a neck crank. Tito tries to fight back but a knee to the ribs stops that pretty quickly.

After some more offense from the savage that is savage enough to tape his wrists and get tights that fit, a leg drop misses and here comes Martel. Everything breaks down and Tama gets caught in a figure four. Haku breaks that up, only for Martel to get a sunset flip on Tama seconds later to end this and keep the titles on Strike Force, who are surprisingly not murdered in Philly.

Rating: C+. Basic power vs. speed match here with the eternally underrated Strike Force doing their basic stuff out there but having the energy that made them awesome. This was perfectly fine and they did exactly what they were supposed to do. The titles were never in jeopardy, but this is a house show after all.

Here’s an opponent you may have heard of. From August 2, 1988.

Hulk Hogan vs. Haku

This is from a Wrestling Challenge taping, which is similar to what Superstars is today. Haku takes him down quickly and the fans are WAY behind Hogan. Hogan fires back and gets a slam followed by the right hands. Heenan takes a shot also (which he would do literally in WCW on a regular basis) which makes me smile.

Haku works on the arm and pulls on the hair. That’s rather impressive considering there isn’t much to pull. This is another of those matches that the commentators say is a title match but Hogan wasn’t champion at the time. Hogan fights up and sets for the big right but Haku hits the floor. He’s a Samoan/Tongan. A shot to the head shouldn’t scare him at all.

Atomic drop sends Haku right back to the floor. And never mind as he’s right back in. Slam puts Haku down as other than the opening seconds this has been all Hogan. Of course as I say that Hogan misses an elbow and it’s off to the King. Yeah it’s King Haku here. Off to the nerve hold now which doesn’t last long. Slam gets two. Back to the nerve hold which never works for the most part.

Haku gets his crescent kick (more or less a superkick) to send Hogan down for two and it’s Hulk Up time. Why in the world would you hammer away on Hogan when he starts doing this? Just run to the floor and stop trying at this point. It’s not going to work. Big boot and the leg ends this.

Rating: C. Standard Hogan vs. monster match that he had roughly 10,000 of in the 80s. These are rather repetitive but at the same time the fans never stopped reacting to them, which is a good sign for Hogan as he was the constant yet the people cared about him enough to keep cheering. That’s hard to do.

Haku would eventually become the King of the WWF and defend the crown on Saturday Night’s Main Event XVII.

King Haku vs. Hulk Hogan

Remember, this is FOR THE CROWN as they mentioned earlier. Bets on Hogan winning and not being king? Haku jumps him and you can smell the comeback from here. Yep there it is. I’d also bet on a shot from Haku taking him down to set up the inevitable. Hey what do you know I’m right. Heenan gets taken out and not a lot of people care. Haku hits a suplex for two, and now Hogan can’t get hurt. I’m not wasting my finger energy on filling in the ending here.

Rating: D+. Standard Hogan match but just lackluster. To be fair though, no one believed Haku would win here and it was just to get him on the TV show. Why mess with what works I suppose. Nothing great at all, but certainly watchable and bearable, albeit not quite as good as the previous match.

Haku would defend the crown against former King Harley Race at the 1989 Royal Rumble.

King Haku vs. Harley Race

Race was King but got hurt and the crown went to Haku. This is his chance to get it back in a one time only return to the ring. Harley shoves over Haku’s throne to start and the brawl is on. You know Race is going to be the brawler in this. Back in and Race pounds away before suplexing Haku down for two. Heenan manages both guys here but Race is kind of the face by default.

They head to the floor again with Race being sent into the post and chopped a few times. Haku sends him back to the floor after a few seconds in the ring as we stall for a few moments. More chops have Race in trouble as Jesse talks about Hogan injuring Race, which is only kind of true. Race no sells a headbutt and gets two off a piledriver. They collide again and Race falls to the floor as Heenan plays both sides, saying he’s for both guys when the other is out of earshot.

Back in and Race punches some more before getting two off a suplex. Haku gets sent to the floor again as it’s pretty clear there’s not much to this match. Race tries to piledrive Haku on the floor but gets backdropped as is the usual. A second attempt at a piledriver works but not incredibly well. Back in and a clothesline puts Haku down for two but Haku comes back and misses a top rope headbutt. Race misses a headbutt of his own and charges into the superkick from Haku (looked GREAT) for the pin to keep the crown in Tonga or wherever he’s from.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t terrible and the ending kick looked awesome, but other than that there wasn’t much to see here. Race was clearly old and banged up and he didn’t have a lot to work with in the form of Haku. The crown was mostly a minor title that was only somewhat official. Nothing to see here, but no one cares about anything but the Rumble tonight anyway.

Roddy Piper would retire from wrestling at Wrestlemania III, only to return two and a half years later. Haku would be his first opponent, at Saturday Night’s Main Event XXIII.

And now, a title win. From December 13, 1989 on Superstars.

Tag Titles: Colossal Connection vs. Demolition

This is during Demolition’s second reign and they’re over huge with the crowd. The fight is on quickly with Andre dropping Ax (who was actually Super Machine) with a headbutt. Haku chops away at Ax to start before it’s off to Andre for some heavy choking in the corner. Smash makes the mistake of going after Heenan, leaving Ax to be double teamed. Andre comes in for a standing choke as this is total dominance by the challengers.

Some shoulders in the corner have Ax in even more trouble but Haku misses a charge to breathe life into the crowd. A second charge hits Ax’s elbow but Haku blocks another tag attempt. Andre comes back in with some headbutts and another choke, drawing Smash in for the save. The referee gets him out, allowing Haku to hit a quick superkick followed by an Andre elbow drop for the pin. Smash tried to make the save but there’s no way to pull Andre around on the mat.

Rating: D. The match sucked, but the fact that Demolition got squashed like this blows my mind. Smash was never even in the match and the pinfall was practically clean in about six minute. That NEVER happens to Demolition at anyone’s hands, making the Connection look all the more awesome.

Haku would get a World Title shot at Saturday Night’s Main Event XXVI as the first challenger to new WWF Champion Ultimate Warrior.

WWF Title: Haku vs. Ultimate Warrior

The pop for Warrior is there as the challenger has no entrance and is just shown warming up in the ring. Yeah this is going to be an even match if there ever was one. Vince had Perfect and DiBiase and Rude and Savage and even Rhodes on the roster and he picked this guy to replace Hogan. Unbelievable. Surprisingly, we start fast.

Who would have guessed that in a Warrior match? Continuing the surprises, Warrior is odd, sloppy and a bit dangerous. They keep referencing the Mania 5 match where Rude managed to beat Warrior, which was apparently his only loss to date. That’s surprising indeed, which isn’t a joke this time.

We hit the slowdown mode as Haku goes through his incredibly generic power midcard guy offense. Jesse claims a slow count to get some very cheap yet basic heel heat going for him. That’s something he and Lawler were great at.

They could say something so simple like that and go off about it for a few minutes and it worked like a charm every single time. Using the exact same formula in the Hogan match, Warrior makes his comeback and takes over on Haku to hit his signature set of moves to end this. For some reason this isn’t the main event but whatever.

Rating: C. This was the epitome of average, but it did the job it was supposed to, which was getting Warrior a little credibility as champion. There’s nothing wrong with having him beat a midcard guy in an otherwise worthless title match and that’s exactly what he did here. This went fine and Warrior looked good, despite it being about five minutes long. That was his status quo and it worked out for him here so that balances out the boring match.

We’ll head to Japan for a bit for the AJPW/WWF Wrestling Summit on August 13, 1990.

Jumbo Tsuruta/Haku vs. Mr. Perfect/Rick Martel

For those of you that have never heard of Jumbo, I feel sorry for you. This guy is freaking AWESOME. Haku…not so much. Martel and Perfect are great of course, but Haku just doesn’t fit at all here. Haku is called King here even though he lost that at least 8 months prior to this. I don’t get that one at all. Anyway, Haku was trained by Giant Baba so that likely has something to do with this.

Jumbo was kind of the Shawn Michaels of Japan, or at least the modern Shawn. He kept getting better with age and never really went downhill. Granted he never became a comedy character that had great matches while doing all kinds of stupid jokes and comedy skits. It’s so odd that Martel went from AWA Champion for a year, when it still meant something, to a silly character like the Model. I’ll go with this: Jumbo is better than Perfect and there’s a decent distance between them.

Jumbo is MAD over. Haku got his start in AJPW so he fits in very well here and he’s well known. Again, these are just weird tag teams as Haku had just split from Andre and Perfect was feuding with Beefcake around this time. Oh I see why Gorilla isn’t here. He would criticize Jumbo’s abdominal stretch. I love that Hennig neck snap. It just looks freaking painful. It’s so weird seeing WWF heel vs. heel stuff. You never saw that in this era at all.

Haku misses a front flip splash which looked cool. He and Perfect are the heels in there in case you were wondering. Scratch that as it’s Martel and the announcers talk about both of them being former AWA Champions, which is very odd. Martel puts on the Boston Crab on Haku, giving us a Canadian putting an American hold on a Tongan wrestler in Japan.

The WWF guys beat the heck out of Haku, leading for the hot tag, and when I say hot tag, I mean white hot tag. Jumbo gets an EPIC pop and after a melee, a high knee and a good looking belly to back suplex at a high angle ends this to another huge pop with the pin on Martel.

Rating: B-. Again there’s not a thing wrong with formula based matches and this is no exception. It’s about ten minutes long and this match just worked. It’s not a masterpiece or anything like that, but it certainly held my attention and it came off as solid. Jumbo was a freaking star that could wrestle on top of that so there you are.

Haku was part of the Heenan Family and would team up with Barbarian in the opening match of Wrestlemania VII.

Haku/Barbarian vs. Rockers

Shawn and Haku get us going with Michaels trying to speed things up, only to be slammed into the corner. The second attempt at flying around works a bit better as a dropkick puts Haku down. The Rockers do some of their double teaming stuff but Barbie takes them down with a big double clothesline. Shawn and Marty double superkick him down though and the Heenan Family has to regroup a bit.

We get down to Marty vs. Barbarian again and speed takes over one more time. A sunset flip doesn’t work for Jannetty but Barbarian punches the mat. A rana takes Barbarian down and Marty pounds away for two. Off to Haku and a double headbutt puts Marty down again. Jannetty loads up another rana but the foreigners hit a double hot shot onto the top rope to really take over this time.

A gorilla press plants Jannetty and it’s time for more heel double teaming. Marty comes back with something like a cross body for two but the speed continues to get beaten down. By speed I mean the drug of the day for Jannetty of course. Back to Barbarian for a bearhug followed by a powerslam so wicked that the fans pop for it. The falling headbutt misses though and it’s hot tag time to Shawn. Things really do speed up now but Shawn gets kicked in the face to slow him down. That goes nowhere for the villains though and it’s a Michaels cross body off the top for the pin on Haku.

Rating: B. Just a fast paced tag team match here with power vs. speed. This is one of those formulas that works no matter how many times you do it as long as you have talented guys in there. The future Faces of Fear were fine as monsters for the Rockers to conquer and it set a good pace for the show here. Solid opening match.

Haku would head to WAR in Japan as King Haku, where he would take part in a WWF/WAR show on September 15, 1992.

King Haku vs. Undertaker

Undertaker hammers away to start and chokes in the corner but gets punched across the ring. The King’s neck is snapped across the top rope to put him down again before Old School sets up a slam. They head outside with Undertaker being sent into the post and slammed down before Haku stomps away in the ring.

Undertaker comes back with a chokeslam out of nowhere for two but gets suplexed down with ease. A top rope splash gets two for the King but Undertaker sits up after a legdrop. Undertaker comes back with a jumping shoulder (looked to be some misdirection on the clothesline) and the Tombstone gets the pin.

Rating: D+. This was just a quick match to give the fans a thrill with a big name from the States out there. Haku seemed to be more entertaining here than he usually was in America but it would be awhile before he would be seen over there again. Undertaker hadn’t found his way in the character yet either.

Meng would head to WCW as a monster bodyguard, but he would soon go out on his own and enter a US Title tournament. Here are the finals at Great American Bash 1995.

US Title: Sting vs. Meng

Around this time, Sting was the most over wrestler in the world and was wrestling solid matches so of course they stuck him in the midcard and had him in random angles in the main event without ever wrestling in it. My guess: to prevent Hogan from looking weak by comparison. You can see the fans wake up for him. The guy is just universally loved…so Russo has been obsessed with turning him heel over the years.

It hasn’t worked yet but this one is too early to say so I’ll let it slide. Again, notice that guys that play directly to the crowd, in this case yelling at them, get bigger reactions that anyone on the roster. See, the key difference between Sting and Hogan: both could get EPIC responses, but Sting could work very solid matches and in more than one style. Hogan was as formula based as Flair and that’s saying a lot.

Sting could work a lot of styles and could work for LONG periods of time. Meng is supposed to be a martial arts master here so his offense is considered great. It’s really weak but it goes to show you what the simple act of talking about how awesome someone is can do for you. It also shows the power the announcers have. They’re talking like they’re scared of Meng so his incredibly weak offense seems more impressive than it actually is. That’s what commentators can do.

Yeah Meng isn’t that good. The hand gyrations from Meng are funny for some reason. Sting gets in some weird offense including a flying hip smash to the face of Meng from the second rope. Yeah it’s weirder than it sounds but it looked ok I guess. It’s impressive to see and hear the crowd change so much depending on how Sting is doing. That says a lot about him. Yes I’m a big Sting fan.

We’re on the floor now and Meng is in trouble. Parker gets beaten up too so this isn’t a total loss. Meng headbutts the post. The Scorpion is put on and Meng doesn’t tap. The hold is broken and the fans go quiet. Sting goes to some of his high risk stuff…and then wins with a jumping DDT? What the HECK? I’ve never seen him win with that before and I haven’t since. It came out of freaking nowhere.

Something makes me think they had to switch something up in there, maybe due to a missed spot or an injury. Sting was always supposed to win, don’t get me wrong, but the ending was too weird to be what was planned. Actually maybe it was. This is WCW in 1995 after all.

Rating: D+. Pretty weak and formula based stuff here. Sting was over as all goodness and had to win it though. I guess they figured going with Sting was the best bet and it clearly was. This wasn’t much but it did its job fine I suppose. If nothing else we have a champion again and he’s over.

We’ll jump ahead to Meng being part of the Dungeon of Doom and facing Arn Anderson on Nitro, July 15, 1996.

Arn Anderson vs. Meng

Dungeon vs. Horsemen here. Heenan talks about how Hogan probably planned this since before he came to WCW. I never got why that was supposed to be this big elaborate plan that they had worked on for years. Why couldn’t it have happened in like a month or so? Who says Hall and Nash didn’t come to WCW and Hogan said “Hmm….this is interesting” and sent them a singing telegram? Eric rants about how the NWO banner is a slap in the face of WCW. The pops for the NWO would seem to disagree.

As for the actual match, this sounds kind of intriguing on paper. The fireworks keep going off and get really annoying really quickly. Anderson dodges some kicks and throws on a headlock. Meng fires off a leapfrog and takes over. Eric talks about Hog Wild and you can almost hear the drool coming out of his mouth. Arn takes him to the mat and wraps Meng’s leg around the post. Barbarian comes out as Meng has a nerve hold on.

Meng kicks Anderson and gets two as we take a break. Back with Anderson hammering away a bit as the fans chant for Hogan. Eric wants the NWO in prison. The announcers going off on the NWO with these ridiculous proclamations of how evil they were were such an added bonus. Bischoff plugs Mr. Nanny again as the guys head to the floor. Meng rams Anderson’s back into the apron a few times but Arn takes over back inside. Scratch that as Meng gets a suplex (exposing the freaky looking untanned upper thigh of Arn) but gets elbowed in the head. DDT is reversed and Barbarian pops up for some double teaming, allowing Meng to get the upset pin.

Rating: B-. Surprisingly good match here as they slugged it out and went back and forth, getting a good match as a result. Meng continues to be a steady hand and Arn does what he does best: stay tough and put people over. Solid TV match and I had fun with it which is the whole idea. Meng of course wouldn’t go anywhere but he wasn’t really the kind of character that was ever going to.

Meng would team up with his old partner the Barbarian as the Faces of Fear. The team would earn a Tag Team Title shot against the Outsiders at Starrcade 1996.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

The Outsiders, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, are defending here. The Faces of Fear are the Barbarian (I told you he stuck around for a long time) and Meng, Robert Parker’s old bodyguard, managed by Jimmy Hart. Hall and Meng start things off with the Tongan monster putting on a wristlock. Hall cranks on the arm but gets caught with a stiff clothesline. Meng charges into a boot in the corner, followed by a bulldog by Hall. The bulldog merely seems to tick Meng off though so he pounds Hall down and brings in Barbarian.

Off to Nash who pounds Barbarian into the corner and fires off some big slow knees to the ribs. An elbow to the face staggers Barbarian but he shoves the 7’0 Nash into the corner and pounds away with chops. Meng comes in and the challengers pound Nash down to a big reaction from the crowd. Nash tries to ram their heads together, but Wrestling Law #3 says anyone described as a savage has a VERY hard head, meaning it has no effect.

Nash is kicked down again for a two count for Barbarian but he misses a middle rope elbow. Barbarian is dropped face first on the top turnbuckle in a move called Snake Eyes (a move named by Nash when he portrayed Vinnie Vegas) and it’s back to Hall to pound on Barbarian a bit more. Meng comes down the apron and pulls Hall to the challengers’ corner for a double team with Barbarian. A BIG boot to the face puts Hall down but referee Nick Patrick, who may or may not be in the NWO’s pocket, takes his sweet time in counting two.

Back to Meng for a very delayed piledriver for another near fall. Barbarian tries his luck again with a bunch of chops and a good looking powerbomb. Patrick again takes forever to count, allowing Nash to come in for a save. Barbarian stays on Hall as Tony says he’s confused by who is legal. To be fair though, tying his shoes confuses Tony. NWO member Syxx goes after Jimmy Hart and the pair head to the back.

Barbarian puts on a nerve hold as Hall gets to lay on the mat. Maybe he needs a nap after all the hard work he’s done in this match so far. After not moving for a good 20 seconds and not being checked by Patrick, Hall fights up and suplexes Barbarian down to escape. Tag off to Nash who gets two off a big boot of his own. Everything breaks down and Nash powerbombs Barbarian down to retain.

Rating: C-. This one went longer than it needed to and even when I was eight years old I knew the Faces of Fear had no chance here. The Outsiders held those belts for the better part of a year and a half with no one being able to take them from them (and keep them that is). The match was a watchable power match but the belts never felt like they were in

The feud with the Horsemen just wouldn’t die and would still be going at Slamboree 1997.

Meng vs. Chris Benoit

This is a death match which means last man standing. Speaking of feuds that WOULD NOT END, this is more Benoit/Horsemen vs. Dungeon. At least Woman looks pretty good here. Benoit is tentative to start but grabs a dragon screw leg whip to put Meng down for about a second. Meng comes right back so Benoit heads to the floor where he gets counted for no apparent reason.

Back in the ring Meng hits a belly to belly suplex. Meng tries to throw a punch but Benoit slips behind him and hits a German. Benoit keeps going for the legs which is smart strategy but he gets kicked off. Out to the floor and Meng is sent into the steps in a scary looking bump as the corner almost hit his eye. Meng comes back in and pounds him down in the corner but Benoit comes back with chops.

Meng goes all psycho Samoan…..and for the love of all things good and holy freaking Jacqueline is here. NO ONE LIKES YOU AND NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU NOW GO AWAY!!! Woman chases her away for some reason that I don’t care about at all. Meng hooks a half crab and I think you can win by submission as well. Benoit makes the ropes which is a break in a match that has no DQ.

Benoit tries a comeback but gets headbutted right back down. A good piledriver puts Benoit down for eight. Out of nowhere Benoit grabs the Crossface (not named yet. Ok apparently it is but Tony calls it an armbar submission at first) but Meng slides to the floor to break it. Now Dusty says you have to break in the ropes. What happens if you don’t? Benoit keeps getting up and screams for more so Meng keeps kicking him in the face.

A running kick in the corner misses and Benoit fires away at him. Here are the rolling Germans which that idiot Tony calls dragon suplexes. This show is ticking me off already and now we have to listen to Tony screw up move names. Here’s the Crossface again but Meng rolls outside again. Wicked suicide dive takes Meng down but Benoit can’t follow up. Back in a suplex puts Meng down but he catches Benoit in the Tongan Death Grip while Benoit tries the swan dive. Benoit passes out for the loss.

Rating: D+. Another match that more or less was a singles match but more hard hitting. It wasn’t terrible but with Tony and Jackie out there messing up everything, it was hard to care. On top of that, why have Benoit lose here? That would apparently be so that they could do THE EXACT SAME MATCH the next month.

Meng wouldn’t see a ton of action for the rest of the year and then would get injured in February 1998. He would return in the fall of that same year and feud with Barbarian, including this match at Road Wild 1998.

Meng vs. Barbarian

This is going to be a long show. The fight starts at the bell with both guys pounding on each other and screaming a lot. They fight over a sumo lockup before trading some chops in the corner. Meng takes over with a hard clothesline even though it didn’t knock Barbarian down. Barbarian comes right back with a belly to belly superplex but Meng pops up and piledrives him.

Meng misses a middle rope splash, no sells it, and goes up top again. Barbarian catches him in a belly to belly superplex as Tenay talks about 350,000 people being at the biker rally this week. A powerslam puts Barbarian down but he gets right back up for some chopping. Meng staggers him with some headbutts but gets pulled to the floor. Barbarian sends him into the steps and heads back inside, only to have Meng put on the Tongan Death Grip for the pin.

Rating: D. It sucked as a match but this wasn’t the worst idea for an opening match. A crowd of bikers is going to respond to two monsters beating each other up for five minutes and they seemed interested here. It doesn’t do much for the wrestling fans, but this show was never for them in the first place.

Meng was hot enough at this point that he would get a World Title shot on the August 10, 1998 episode of Nitro.

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Meng

Meng pounds away to start but Goldberg hits a kind of flying tackle. A superkick puts Meng on the floor but the Black and White leave Meng alone. Back in and Goldberg puts on a quickly broken leg bar before getting kicked to the floor on the Black and White side. The Wolfpack makes the save but Meng puts him in the Tongan Death Grip, only to let go early. Spear, Jackhammer, we’re done. Too short to rate but they actually did a good job of making Goldberg seem vulnerable. Given the opponent, that’s very impressive.

Then he would have this awesome match on September 14, 1998’s Nitro.

Giant vs. Meng

Meng slaps Giant back into the corner and kicks at the legs before they get into a brawl with neither guy going anywhere. Meng staggers Giant with a kick right to the face so the strap comes down. Giant hits him again and Meng is all FOREIGN SHOUTING. A headbutt has no effect on Meng and neither does a right hand to the head. Another kick to the face staggers Giant and Meng loads up the Death Grip, but Giant uses his reach advantage to grab the chokeslam as Meng can’t get to his throat. REALLY fun match for two minutes.

We’ll skip ahead again as Meng would go to Japan for awhile before coming back in 1999. Here’s one of his first big matches back, from Mayhem 1999.

Meng vs. Total Package

Luger is the Package for those of you uninitiated. He’s in the neck collar and hasn’t been wanting to wrestle at all lately so this is a continuation of that story. Luger gets his shirt ripped off quickly and there go the pants too. Again, WHAT IS WITH THE RIPPING OFF OF MEN’S CLOTHING??? Luger goes to the eyes and manages to suplex Meng despite having a bad neck. The suplex isn’t sold either so we’ll call it even.

They go outside for a bit and Luger hammers away as they come back in. Meng tries the Tongan Death Grip but he can’t get past the neck brace. Instead he steps on the throat while we talk about the main event. Powerslam gets two for Lex. He rams Meng’s head into the buckle. I guess when they say Total Package that doesn’t include intelligence as YOU DON’T HIT A SAMOAN IN THE HEAD. Meng starts his comeback as this is going in slow motion. Liz has some spray or something but it hits Luger instead. Meng takes the brace off and the Death Grip ends it.

Rating: D. In other words, Liz was Jimmy Hart, Luger was Brian Knobs and Meng was Norman Smiley. I’ll give Russo this: I’ve seen him go shorter than this between using the same style of an ending. This was another match where I have no idea what the point of this being on the PPV was but I’m sure it made sense at the time. I’m not being serious with that last line but I thought I’d try being nice for a change.

Next up was the pursuit of the Hardcore Title, including this match at Souled Out 2000.

Brian Knobbs vs. Meng vs. Norman Smiley vs. Fit Finlay

This is called Four the Hard Way but it’s really just a fatal fourway. This is during the Smiley is scared of hardcore matches period. Knobbs and Finlay are dressed alike as the idea here is that Finlay trained him to be a hardcore guy. Yes, Brian Knobbs is a champion in the year 2000. Smiley tries a trashcan shot to Meng’s head which fails miserably.

It’s one of those hardcore matches that you’ve seen a few million times in WCW as it’s not incredibly interesting but they’re kind of entertaining for the sake of being what they are. Everyone beats up Norman and nothing hurts Meng, namely due to that big thing of hair. Here’s a table and some bad chair shots. Finlay and Smiley go into the crowd which lasts about four seconds. This is one of those matches that needs to end. Knobbs is out mostly so Smiley goes near him. Smiley gets hit with his own riot shield and this is finally over.

Rating: D-. I mean dude, what do you want me to say here? It’s a hardcore match. Like I said, if you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen a million of them since there isn’t anything different about any of them for the most part. The title never died of course as WCW kept this joke up for another YEAR. They never learned at all.

Meng would be out for most of 2000 before returning in early 2001 to keep up his pursuit. He got another shot at the Hardcore Title at Sin.

Hardcore Title: Crowbar vs. Terry Funk vs. Meng

Meng has the title itself but Funk is champion. Daffney tries to jump Funk which of course fails. Crowbar, no longer a seventies guy (that would be Funk) jumps Funk and the brawl starts sans Meng. They head to the back into the ladies room. Standard bathroom fight as Crowbar is slammed into every stall. Meng is nowhere to be seen here. Ah there he is.

He throws a plastic trashcan over Funk and hammers on it a bit. They head back into the arena and Funk pelts a trashcan at Meng’s head. They double team him for a bit before Funk realizes that makes too much sense so he beats up Crowbar. Luckily there happens to be about six tables stacked up against a wall. WE FOUND THE SOURCE!!!!! Crowbar hits Funk with a laptop as Hudson says Crowbar wants the Cruiserweight Title back.

Crowbar climbs into the crowd and dives on Funk on a table which the camera completely misses. Why do they miss it? Because they accidently cut to the ring crew fixing the ring ropes. And people wonder why this company went out of business. This is what replay is for I guess as we get to see the Boom Drop for lack of a better term.

Meng pops up to him Crowbar with a trashcan again and take over one more time. They head to the stage with Crowbar hammering away to no effect. Side kick sends Crowbar sprawling down the ramp. Funk gets a snow shovel from somewhere and pops Meng with it to send him down. That’s a rarity. Funk slams Crowbar through the railing which literally almost snaps in half. Good thing WCW upgraded to the barriers made of cotton candy.

Funk and Crowbar go to the ring where Funk takes some chair shots to the knees and gets Pillmanized. Well kind of at least. Funk of course is on his feet seconds later and hammers away. Meng is back now and Crowbar puts a figure four on despite Meng hammering on him. Meng goes up top and crushes Crowbar with a splash. That looked awesome. Piledriver gets two as Funk saves.

Meng hammers away and slams Funk before a middle rope splash gets two. Funk and Crowbar hit Meng literally about 18 times with chairs to take him down. The head shots don’t work as well due to the afro but they’re trying at least. Funk gets Meng in position for a DDT but Crowbar blasts him with a chair. Kick takes Crowbar down and the Tongan Death Grip gives Meng the title. He would be in the Royal Rumble a week later.

Rating: C. This got a lot better after the first five minutes or so. Meng as a total monster is a fun character. That’s probably why WWF signed him to a guaranteed deal a day or so after this while WCW was doing a pay per appearance kind of thing and thought there was nothing wrong with putting a title on him (his first actually). Meng would be in the Rumble seven days later as a surprising appearance and kind of as a big SCREW YOU to Bischoff as the Hardcore Division in WCW died with the title never being mentioned again other than I think once on Thunder.

Meng would jump to the WWF while still champion because WCW. He would start a feud with Undertaker at the Royal Rumble and face him on the January 29, 2001 episode of Raw.

Haku vs. Undertaker

Naturally they slug it out to start and a big boot takes Haku down. That and a leg drop gets two. I guess Taker is a REAL AMERICAN. Old School kind of takes Haku down. Rikishi trips him up and gets beaten down a bit for his cheating. Haku drills him on the floor and takes over somewhat.

Taker fights back and tries a backdrop but Haku messes up the counter. The Samoan hammers away in the corner and a headbutt puts Taker down for two. Big clothesline puts Haku down again as does a DDT. Rikishi’s distraction prevents the Tombstone so Rikishi and Kane get into it. Chair to Kane’s ribs takes care of him as a chokeslam ends Haku.

Rating: D+. This was pretty worthless. Did anyone want to see Samoans vs. Brothers? Really? I can’t think of anyone out there enough to want to see it and it’s not like the feud was any good. Weak match here with zero doubt that Taker would get the pin here somehow. The feud was at least short lived so that helps.

We’ll wrap it up with the tag version from Raw on March 5, 2001.

Haku/Rikishi vs. Kane/Undertaker

Heyman calls the Samoans children of the jungle. Is that like Children of the Corn? The brawl begins on the ramp and everything is a bit nuts. Finally we get down to Taker vs. Haku in the ring and we actually get a bell. To the shock of no one, this is a slugout. The Samoan hits a German on the American for two. Taker can’t hurt Haku’s head so he calls some spots instead, namely running into an elbow. Off to Rikishi as those two had been in there way too long. And never mind as Haku is back in maybe 8 seconds later. DDT puts Haku down for two. Off to Kane and everything breaks down. Chokeslam ends Haku rather quickly.

Rating: D. Match was flat out horrible as I’d almost think Kane was hurt here as he did almost nothing at all. Taker in 2001 isn’t someone you want to have fight this long on his own, especially against Haku. Rikishi would be gone very soon due to an injury so this was one of the last moments for the Samoans. Yeah Rikishi would work Smackdown the next night and then was gone for two months.

Meng would basically retire after this, save for a few matches on house shows and some indy appearances. As you can see, Meng is a great example of a guy that kept a job for so many years by being a tough and basic monster character. Monsters from the islands have been used for years in wrestling and he’s one of the better ones in history. No he never really accomplished much, but he’s not the kind of a guy that is supposed to in the first place. Given that he kept steady employment in wrestling for over twenty years, that’s not the worst result in the world.

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It’s Roddy Piper and that’s all the introduction you need.

 

Piper got his start in the AWA where he famously lost his first match to Larry Hennig in 10 seconds. He would stick around for a few years but not do much of anything before heading west to Los Angeles where he was the top heel for several years. Here he is against probably his biggest rival of the period, Chavo Guerrero. From the LA Olympic Coliseum in 1976, putting this early in their feud.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Roddy Piper

We get a bagpipe recital before the match but Chavo breaks it up. Uncultured pest. They slug it out to start with neither guy moving an inch. A right hand to the face puts Chavo in the ropes and some elbows to the back of the head have him in even more trouble. Guerrero fights back with uppercuts in the corner but has to beat up Piper’s unnamed manager whose name sounds like Dr. Rivera.

Chavo beats him up for a good while and sends him into the corner as Piper is on the floor with an object in his hand. He slips it to the manager but it winds up knocking the referee down, allowing Piper and Rivera to destroy Chavo with what looks like a pipe. Rivera covers Guerrero and Piper counts a pin before Roddy accidentally hits Rivera with the pipe. A second referee comes out but gets shoved down as well as Rivera is back up. Hector Guerrero FINALLY comes out to help his brother as Piper is somehow named the winner. That doesn’t even make bad sense. No rating as the match barely happened but it was wild.

Piper would head north to Portland where he again would become a big star, though this time as a face. His biggest feud was against Buddy Rose and here’s one match between them from May 12, 1979.

Buddy Rose vs. Roddy Piper

This is 2/3 falls with two guest referees, one inside and one outside. Piper is Pacific Northwest Champion but the belt isn’t on the line here. The brawl starts on the floor with Rose being whipped into the barricade. Back in and Piper whips him into the buckles as Rose is begging for mercy on the floor. Buddy slides back in and nails some left hands to almost no effect. Instead it’s off to a chinlock and Piper is busted open somehow.

The fans chant for Roddy as he fights up after two arm drops. Back up and Piper freaks out after seeing his own blood but Rose bites the cut to put him back down. We hit another chinlock and Piper actually goes down as Rose drives a knuckle into his head. Roddy finally scores with a knee to the head but Rose pokes him in the eye to stop him again.

Piper loses it again and nails a series of right hands. A shot to the throat puts Rose down as the recently face Piper still has some heel mannerisms about him. Rose gets hammered in the corner and suplexed down but Piper picks him up at two. A swinging neckbreaker gives Roddy the first fall.

Fall #2 begins after a break and Rose is walking to the back. That goes nowhere as he comes back in with a few seconds to spare and Piper fires off elbows to the head. A hard whip into the corner puts Rose down again and we hit the neck crank from Piper this time. Piper lets go and snaps Rose’s throat across the top rope instead but misses a dropkick in the corner as the turnbuckle breaks.

Rose chokes with the rope before taking him outside to ram Roddy’s back into the post. The crew tries to fix the buckle but the ropes are flying all over the place now. Rose grabs a backbreaker for two but pulls Piper up instead of going for the pin. A second backbreaker is enough for the pin on Piper though to tie things up.

We start the final round with Rose jumping Piper from behind and getting two off an atomic drop. Off to a bearhug on Piper but he fights out with a stiff right hand to the face. Rose backs off but gets beaten down in the corner, only to come back with a headbutt to the ribs. They fight outside with Rose hammering away but Piper takes over with an even bigger beating. A guy named Wisgowski runs out and posts Piper, allowing Rose to try to claim a countout. The other referee doesn’t buy it though and Piper wins by DQ.

Rating: C+. This worked well while it lasted and the double referee makes sense here. These two feuded for over a year in Portland and drew some awesome crowds over how much they hated each other. Rose would be more famous as a comedy guy in the WWF, as well as being in the first match at Wrestlemania.

Piper would head to Jim Crockett and Mid-Atlantic about a year later. After a feud with Ric Flair, Piper would set his sights on Greg Valentine and the US Title. Their most famous match was a dog collar match at Starrcade 1983.

Roddy Piper vs. Greg Valentine

Greg is US Champion but this is non-title because it’s a dog collar match. The idea is they both have collars around their neck and there’s a chain attaching the two collars, meaning neither guy can run away. Anything goes and you can win by pinfall. This match came about because Valentine injured Piper’s ear in the match where he won the title. They immediately start by pulling on the chain with their necks in a painful looking tug of war. Neither guy can get an advantage so they both start pulling on the chain to get closer to each other.

Piper gets in the first shot with the chain and Valentine is mad. They back up again but Valentine misses some swings and Piper gets back to the corner. Both guys come to the center of the ring for a slugout but no one can take over. Roddy gets in some shots with the chain and Valentine is in trouble. Greg goes for the bad ear and start choking away with the chain but also wrapping the chain around Piper’s face for extra torture.

Piper comes back with some shots to the eyes of his own before choking away in the middle of the ring. Valentine is sent into the corner and Piper keeps pounding away on the head. Piper takes it to the floor for some HARD shots with the chain as they head into the barricade. Greg gets in some shots to the bad ear and Piper is bleeding from the side of his head.

Back in and Valentine pounds away but Piper blocks a suplex. A hard elbow gets two for Valentine but Piper is in big trouble. Greg tries to hit the ropes but Piper pulls the chain to bring him down. Piper goes NUTS on Valentine and pounds away on him, busting the champion open in the process. Valentine goes right back to the ear but Piper comes back with some straight left hands to the jaw. A BIG right hand drops Valentine but Greg goes after the ear again to take over. Greg gets two off a knee drop as both guys are tiring.

A chain shot to Piper’s ear gets two but Roddy comes back with a suplex to put both guys down. Greg grabs a quick sleeper but Piper’s arm only drops once. Roddy wraps the chain around his hand but the hold slows him down again. A jawbreaker gets Piper out of the hold but it’s Valentine going up first. Roddy pulls him off the ropes and beats the tar out of him with the chain before tying the legs up to pin Valentine. Solie says that was for the title but corrects himself a few seconds later.

Rating: B+. This is a very hard hitting brawl but it can be a bit slow at times. This is the match that made people realize how insane Piper could be as he went out there and took an insane beating before coming back time after time and trying to hurt Valentine. He would jump to the WWF soon after and become the top villain in the world, which is what he deserved to be.

Piper would be in the WWF very soon after this. His first feud came against Jimmy Snuka, due to Piper breaking a coconut over Snuka’s head. Here’s one of their many matches from MSG on August 25, 1984.

Roddy Piper vs. Jimmy Snuka

Ok, this MUST be better than anything else tonight. I mean, by pure talent alone it has to be. This is just after the coconut attack by Piper so this is a really hot feud. Piper bails to the floor to start (popular move tonight) before coming back in for a hot slugout. Snuka easily chops him down and adds a headbutt for good measure. Piper tries a headbutt of his own and looks like he has a concussion. Roddy goes to the eye instead and pounds away at the head but Jimmy comes back with a chop to send Piper to the floor.

As they come back in, Snuka gets Piper caught up in the ropes and pounds away before hooking a sleeper. Piper gyrates his way out to the floor again and finally breaks the hold. Jimmy rams him into the post and into a chair for good measure to bust Piper open. They head back inside and Roddy looks TERRIFIED. Another headbutt puts Piper down but he counters the top rope cross body and sends Jimmy into the ropes. Snuka falls to the floor and is counted out in record time.

Rating: C+. This was BY FAR the best match of the night so far as it felt like these two wanted to kill each other. Piper charging in to fight Jimmy was a good idea as he looked more crafty than cowardly, which is a nice thing to see given how lame heels are booked in modern wrestling. These two feuded for a long time, with the feud being incorporated into the main event of the first Wrestlemania.

Piper would soon move on to his biggest feud ever with Hulk Hogan. Roddy had attacked pop star Cyndi Lauper with Hogan coming in for the save. This set up the War to Settle the Score in February of 1985.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

We’re on MTV now for the next thirty minutes. Piper does the whole pipe and drums intro thing. Piper wears a Hulkamania shirt and brings in a guitar. Orton has a sling for his arm as the injury is very slow healing already. Bob Costas is doing the ring announcing here to show how big this is. Piper breaks the guitar saying this is what I think of rock and roll.

The place EXPLODES for Hogan and Eye of the Tiger. This really should have been the main event of the first Mania, perhaps with Hogan challenging for the belt. They go right at it to start with Hogan DRILLING in right and Piper collapsing from the force of a whip into the corner. Big elbow drop has Piper reeling early on. A ton of celebrities are here. This really was a huge deal.

Clothesline in the corner gets two as the fans are rabid here. Piper gets the sleeper which is actually a choke. We get two arm drops and Hogan shakes his finger no on the third one to a huge reaction. Hogan rams him into the corner to break it up and here’s Orton for the interference that isn’t seen.

His arm goes into the buckle and Hogan fights back with….left hands? Really? It’s on now and here comes Paul Orndorff to replace the hurt Orton. There goes the referee and Orndorff gets a top rope knee and it’s thrown out somewhere in there. The heels beat down Hogan, and then we get to the REAL reason this show happened: Mr. T. jumps the guard rail and gets in, only to be beaten down as well. Hogan comes up for the save, and ladies and gentlemen, I give you Wrestlemania.

Rating: D+. Match sucked and if you think that means anything then stop reading as you have no business here. The match was simply the backdrop to set up the biggest event in wrestling history (yes Starrcade that includes you) and the show that would make WWF mean something. This would lead to Hogan vs. Orndorff which set up Hogan vs. Heenan which set up Hogan vs. Andre and I think you can see where this could get awesome in a hurry. Bad match, EPIC moment as the WWF had arrived.

They would have another match at the Wrestling Classic.

WWF Title: Roddy Piper vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan, in white tights, is jumped by Piper during the music. This is more or less a token title defense here as it’s pretty much fallout (8 months later) from Mania. It’s of course a brawl from the start as nothing else would work for these two I guess. This reminds me of a UK game as it’s blue and white. That automatically makes this awesome. Hogan is dominating early so all is right with the world.

The referee stops a punch though, allowing Piper to punch Hogan. God bless sensible officiating. In something you don’t see often from Hogan, he uses a bearhug. His weight and size was rarely talked about as he was always against monsters, but he was bigger than about 90% of wrestlers ever. That’s saying a lot. This is about as standard as you can get as I feel like I’m watching a house show.

The sleeper is the submission hold of choice here and there’s the arm popping up on the third try. In a cool spot, Hogan runs at the ropes and dives over to break the hold. Yes you read that right, Hogan jumped. I’ll give you a minute to recover from that. Uh oh we have a ref bump. Piper drills him with a chair and of course being hit by a professional athlete with a large and heavy object made of steel isn’t enough to hurt Hogan at all.

Hogan gets Piper in a sleeper (yes you read that right) but Orton runs in for the DQ in another cheap finish. Orndorff makes the save. Gorilla says that Orton was effective. How? He caused his man to get a DQ and therefore it’s the same result as him getting pinned, but then again what do I know?

Rating: C-. This was generic, but then again it wasn’t bad at all. These two had a great chemistry together as there’s such a perfect natural rivalry that you can’t plan or script here. I always wanted for Piper to win the title, even for a month or two. Can you imagine the money that the rematches would draw? Heck that would have been FAR better as the main event of Mania 2. Anyway, this wasn’t bad or great, but it was more bad than good because of the ending.

No real reason for this one but it’s Piper being a jerk as always, culminating in a match between Jesse Ventura/Piper/Orton and the Hillbillies.

Jesse Ventura/Roddy Piper/Bob Orton vs. Cousin Luke/Uncle Elmer/Hillbilly Jim

Jim is the most talented of the face hillbilly team. What does that tell you? Piper and Orton say funny things about the hillbillies. He was a total master on the mic in this era. The hillbillies say generic hillbilly stuff. The mat is dark gray and the ropes are mixed up, as in they go blue, red then white. It’s weirder than it sounds. Also, the ring looks TINY. Uncle Elmer and Ventura start. Elmer is REALLY fat.

Wow it’s odd hearing Heenan from this era. It really is. He’s a totally different commentator. He’s still his usual jerky self, but his voice sounds different to put it mildly. Luke…sucks. That’s all there is to it. I mean he sucks HARD. Naturally he gets beaten down for the majority of the match. Piper was still moving in the ring at this time and was far better at wrestling than he was given credit for.

Jesse’s wrestling was underrated. He knew how to sell and could work a crowd really well. Luke gets his head handed to him for a good while. We get the classic ref doesn’t see the tag spot which is one of the easiest ways in the world to get heat on someone. Piper beats up Uncle Elmer, who is like 6’7 and close to 500lbs on his own. It’s rather amusing. We get a melee and after a cast shot to Luke, Piper puts him to sleep to end a glorified squash.

Rating: D. Weak stuff here but like I said, I’d expect a lot of that. There was heat from the crowd, but when the third best in ring guy is Hillbilly Jim, it’s a bad sign. This just didn’t work and felt weak, but that’s part of the problem with the hillbillies in general: they’re nothing but comedy characters and putting them in a match like this isn’t going to lead anywhere.

Piper would leave to make They Live soon after this. He came back to find that the Pit had been replaced by the Flower Shop, and that meant he was out of bubble gum. From Wrestlemania III in Piper’s retirement match.

Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis

The loser gets their hair cut and is probably the third biggest match on the show if not the second biggest. Piper walks to the ring instead of taking the cart to soak everything in a little bit more. The fans go NUTS for Piper who is still somewhat freshly face. Adonis is rather plump here, giving us a great line from Jesse: “We’re either going to have a bald Scot or Humpty Dumpty.” Piper takes off his belt and they whip each other a few times with Adonis taking over.

Piper comes right back by sending Adrian into the corner for Flair Flip to the floor. Both Adonis and Hart get pulled back in and Piper rams them together to send them back outside. Back in again and Piper throws Hart off the top and onto Adonis but Jimmy FINALLY gets something right by tripping Roddy down.

Now it’s Adonis in control as they head to the floor. Piper gets sent into the announce table and Jimmy adds a spray of perfume into his eyes. There’s Adrian’s sleeper (Good Night Irene) and Piper is almost out, but Adonis lets him go at two arm drops. Brutus Beefcake runs out to wake Piper up and after a missed clipper shot from Adonis, Piper puts him in the sleeper for the win.

Rating: C+. This was the exact kind of wild brawl that you would expect it to be. The ending was the right move as Adonis had accidentally cut Beefcake’s hair recently so it made sense given the haircut stuff. This is the right way for Roddy to go out though and the fans were way into it. Fun stuff here.

Piper would actually leave the ring for over two years, eventually coming back in late 1989. He and Bad News Brown eliminated each other from the 1990 Royal Rumble, setting up a bizarre match at Wrestlemania VI. In what I think was some kind of a nod to Michael Jackson, Piper came into the match with half of his body painted black. It didn’t make sense but it was certainly memorable.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown

An interesting point here is that both guys are legit black belts in judo with Brown being an Olympic bronze medalist in the sport. They immediately take it to the mat in a fist fight until Piper gets two off a cross body of all things. The referee (former heel wrestler Danny Davis) keeps separating them so Brown takes over by sending Piper’s head into the buckle. He yells at Piper for trying to be black and it’s off to a nerve hold.

Brown slugs him down a few times and drops an elbow for two. Somewhere in there a buckle pad is ripped off and it’s Brown going chest first into said buckle. Piper pulls out a single white glove (Brown wore a single black one) and a bunch of punches send Brown to the floor. Piper swings a chair but hits the post and it’s a double countout.

Rating: D. Instead of a brawl or something entertaining, this was much more of a bizarre spectacle than anything else. Brown would be gone soon after this while Piper would shift into the broadcast booth to take over for Jesse. The fight was a lot weaker because of how much stuff there was to distract from the action which is never a good thing.

Piper wrestled very sparingly for awhile as he did commentary for the second half of 1990 and injured his knee in a motorcycle crash. After squashing some jobbers in late 1991, he earned an Intercontinental Title shot at Royal Rumble 1992.

Intercontinental Title: Roddy Piper vs. The Mountie

Piper slowly removes his kilt and Mountie cracks jokes. When the champ turns his head, Piper shoves the kilt in his face and takes over quickly. We head to the floor with Mountie quickly reeling. Back in the ring and Mountie chokes a bit before getting punched in the face. A very delayed bulldog puts Mountie down and Piper easily wins a slugout. He misses a dropkick though and Mountie puts on a half nelson. A jumping back elbow gets two for Mountie as does a sunset flip for Piper. Piper atomic drops him to the apron but Mountie skins the cat. He also collides with Jimmy Hart and the sleeper gives Piper the title.

Rating: D. The match itself sucked but there was never any doubt about this match at all. Mountie is about as textbook a definition of a transitional champion as you’ll ever see and the place went NUTS when Piper won the title. This would be Piper’s only singles title in the WWF and his only title period (other than those before he got to the WWF in the first place) until he won the US Title in WCW for less than two weeks.

Roddy would basically retire again for several years after this, before eventually becoming the WWF President. That didn’t last long either though as he debuted at Halloween Havoc 1996 and had a match against Hogan at Starrcade 1996.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

The whole idea is that Hogan has never definitively beating Piper one on one. Hogan has a fleet of people with him here but he still wants time out before we get going. He’s already on the floor before the bell rings and it’s time to stall. After a minute of waiting on the floor he heads back inside for a lockup and takes Piper into the corner. Piper shoves him into the other corner and finally fires off some right hands, sending Hogan out to the floor and up the aisle. Back in and Hogan pounds away as this is very dull stuff so far.

Hogan throws a lot of punches but Piper comes back with a thumb to the eye and a clothesline. Hollywood heads to the floor and it’s time for more stalling. Back in for a main event headlock which Piper uses to drag Hogan down to the mat. Hogan finally knocks him out to the floor for more brawling, which means single right hands knocking Piper three feet backwards.

They head back in with Piper punching him down again as we head to the floor for the fifth time or so. Piper rams him into the barricade over and over before whipping Hogan in the back with a belt. Back in and Piper slams him down, only to be tripped by Ted DiBiase, meaning WE GO OUTSIDE AGAIN. Hogan knocks Piper into the crowd for a second as this is REALLY boring so far. Back in yet again and Hogan kicks away at Piper’s recently replaced hip before putting on an abdominal stretch.

Piper fights out of it and pounds him in the head before getting two off a small package. They slug it out a bit and Tony is thrilled by this for some reason. Piper hooks a suplex and you would think he had just reinvented sliced bread. Time for more laying around but Hogan misses his legdrop.

Piper gets up and hops on one foot (what was with that???) and here’s Giant for the save. He picks up Piper for the chokeslam but after holding him in the air for seventeen seconds (including Hogan having to stop a fan from running in), Piper kicks Hogan down and bites Giant to escape the hold. Piper shoves Giant to the floor and puts Hogan in the sleeper for the win.

Rating: F. For the main event of the biggest show of the year, this was awful. For a match in general, this was a disaster. The fans didn’t react at all until the end and even then it was NOTHING compared to the pop when Luger beat Giant. It was clear that neither guy was capable of working a match this long with no one to help them and it made for a terrible ending to the show.

WCW goes nuts for Piper and the NWO runs in to beat down Piper. He fights them off and bails before Giant and Hogan are furious with each other. Giant asks Hogan where he was when he needed Hogan. Oh by the way: this wasn’t for the title. WCW never said it was but never said that it wasn’t either, correctly assuming that fans would think the main event of the biggest show of the year was a title match.

We’ll jump ahead again as 1997 and 1998 didn’t have much for Piper. Those years were spent either in matches about respect or bringing up his rivalry with Hogan that no one wanted to see in the late 90s. Instead here’s a match from Slamboree 1999 as Piper and Flair are fighting for the presidency of WCW because Flair is insane.

Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair

The winner is the president. Before things get going, referee Johnny Boone is fired and Charles Robinson replaces him. Flair runs his mouth and gets slapped to get us going. Piper knocks him to the floor and let’s take a break after that. He boxes Flair, seemingly hitting him in the chest and neck, but Flair falls anyway. He hits a low blow to take over and Robinson yells at Piper for choking.

Flair yells at Anderson to beat on Piper when he throws him outside. Flair throws Piper outside and Anderson beats on him. Asya comes in for a low blow and this is about as far from serious as you could want it to be. Flair chops away in the corner and Piper chops back. Robinson cheats on a cover and says Flair keeps getting his shoulder up. There’s the Flair Flip in the corner and they go to the outside.

Piper rams Flair’s head into Flair’s arm but we’ll say it was the post anyway. Back in the ring they ram heads and both guys are down. After about 2 seconds of leg softening here’s the Figure Four. Piper tries a sunset flip and there go the trunks. He hooks Flair in the Figure Four and Flair screams that he gives up but Robinson ignores it. Anderson breaks it up but gets thrown in a sleeper. Now Flair in the sleeper. Asya runs in and gets kissed and put in a sleeper as well. The referee gets decked and Flair hits Piper with an illegal object for the pin.

Rating: The chipmunk has pneumonia. I better take him to the embassy before he deletes the remote control of reality and I run out of apple juice. If he does that, there will be a great and mighty feast in the great archway of the flippyflook.

And that was more logical than putting this match on PPV. But wait: there’s more.

Here’s Eric Bischoff who hasn’t been seen in awhile and has no authority whatsoever in this company. He says Piper is the winner and that Flair can bite him. Somehow this stands. Eric and Piper hug to a face pop (intentional I’d assume but who knows with this company?) and Piper fires Flair. Just….yeah.

Thankfully we’ll get out of WCW after that as Piper entered into another retirement, only to return at Wrestlemania XIX to reignite his feud with Hogan. They would meet at Judgment Day 2003. Er, actually it was Mr. America but whatever.

Mr. America vs. Roddy Piper

Get this over with. FAST. Sean O’Haire is with Piper here and Gowen is with Hogan. The joke is an old one here but still kind of funny. Piper, in regular trunks, jumps Hogan along with O’Haire to take over early. O’Haire, in wrestling gear for no apparent reason, hammers away on Hogan a bit too. Here comes Mr. America with the “24 inch Patriots” and the beating is on.

Out to the floor and Hogan chokes O’Haire with the weight belt. Hogan whips Piper with it a bit as we haven’t had a single wrestling move other than a punch or whip in this whole thing. Sleeper goes on and it’s AWFUL. Piper is almost poking him in the eyes. Hogan fights that off and gets taken down by an axe handle to the back. American hammers away again and it’s Vince to the rescue! Low blow by Piper but a pipe shot from O’Haire hits Piper and the leg drop ends it. Gowen kept Vince from saving it.

Rating: F+. Why in the world is Roddy Piper in trunks in a featured match on PPV in 2003? Hogan….eh I guess you can stretch to let that be here, but put him against O’Haire and let HIM get the rub. He was a cool character and he gets fed to Hogan instead of growing a bit. That’s the criticism you get for Hogan and at times it makes sense. Granted this one isn’t Hogan’s fault, but it’s the stereotype of him. This one is on the company though.

Piper would be gone again but would come back in 2006 to team up with Flair in an effort to teach the Spirit Squad respect. From Cyber Sunday 2006.

Raw Tag Titles: Ric Flair/??? vs. Spirit Squad

The vote is for Flair’s partner. The choices are Piper, Slaughter and Dusty. Piper, looking VERY old, gets the nod. Is there supposed to be a connection between Slaughter and Flait that I’m just not getting? Piper takes his shirt off and I get mad at him. How could he not tell us he was 8 months pregnant? He even has breasts full of milk! Dusty and Slaughter come out to back up the old guys for this.

Kenny and Mikey are the two in the ring at the moment. Ross says this is like Lebron vs. Michael Jordan. Well no one ever claimed Ross toned things down. Both tag and Piper is pathetic looking. Piper gets beaten up as Flair is by far the ace of the team. That’s either awesome or sad and I’m not sure which. The heels dominate for the most part while Piper just kind of lays there.

The hot tag brings in Flair and Mikey is in the figure four but Kenny saves with his top rope legdrop. Are we waiting on the Piper hot tag now? It’s clear that Flair is the only guy on his team in any semblance of shape. Figure four goes on again and OLD GUYS WIN! Dusty and Slaughter come in to stop the big beatdown. Rhodes’ music of all things plays them out. Ah ok it’s so they can dance.

Rating: D-. This was pretty pathetic really. Flair is passable but Piper was clearly just in nothing close to wrestling shape. He would at least wear a t-shirt for the rest of his time in the ring which is a nice break. They would drop the belts in 8 days to Rated RKO so at least this wasn’t long or anything. The match was bad though, namely due to Piper.

We’ll wrap it up with a match from Raw on June 13, 2006.

Roddy Piper vs. The Miz

Piper is in tights and a t-shirt while Miz is in street clothes.  Miz hammers away and Piper gets a sleeper.  Riley pulls him off and here they go.  Piper grabs a schoolboy for the pin at 1:06.

Oh come on it’s Roddy Piper. He could have an entertaining match in the ring if given the chance but his greatest glory came on the microphone. Piper is one of the best talkers of all time and there’s a case to be made that he’s the best ever. Yeah he thinks a bit too highly of himself, but to suggest he’s anything but outstanding is ridiculous.

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I got to thinking about Roddy Piper today.I find it interesting that most fans of my age (26) remember Roddy Piper as the mother of all heels.  The reason it’s interesting is Piper was barely a heel at any part of my life.  He turned face in early 1987 and remained that way pretty much for the rest of his career, save for a quick run in WCW in 1999 when everything was nuts and a two month run in 2003.  That speaks volumes about his heel run in the 80s as he went from that to a huge face for the next 25 years or so but is still remembered as a heel.

 

 

The Pink and Black Attack is back to be Wrestler of the Day. It’s Bret Hart.

Since Bret’s another guy with WAY too many classics to name, we’re going with the formula of “here are a bunch of Bret matches in no order and with no rhyme or reason.”

We’ll start in 1992 when Ric Flair was sick (or whatever version of the story you go with) and needed to get the title taken off of him. The show was in Canada so here’s a title shot for a young Canadian.

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

For reasons never quite explained, this was never shown on TV but instead only aired on a home video called Smack Em Whack Em. It’s just such an odd decision, especially when the goal is to make Bret to be the next big deal for the company. For the life of me I don’t know what they were thinking but here it is. More or less this was the token world title match you got at the end of the show because you needed a main event even though it meant nothing at all.

The announcers talk about what a great match Bret vs. Perfect would be. I’m not sure why they’re talking about it in a hypothetical sense when the match had already happened. The opening of the match is mainly a headlock by Flair with Bret not being able to get much control at all. Bret comes back with a hammerlock but gets whipped hard into the corner to put him back down. Bret is brimming with confidence here as he stomps on Flair’s stomach. Flair bails to the floor for a breather before coming back in for a top wristlock.

They’ve been going about four minutes but Gorilla thinks it’s been ten. You can see Bret limping a lot as his ankle must be bothering him, especially since Flair hasn’t done any leg work at all. Bret takes him down into an armbar and cranks away for a good while. Flair sends him to the apron but gets caught in a sunset flip. In the continuation of a running joke, Flair has his trunks pulled down, exposing the back half of himself. Why this happened so many times over the year is beyond me.

Flair bails to the floor again before coming back inside and whipping Bret hard into the corner. A few hard right hands to the face have Bret in trouble but he avoids a knee drop. Bret goes after the knee now to put Flair in trouble all over again. There’s a Figure Four by Bret to insult Flair a little bit. Flair finally makes the rope and gets caught in a backslide for two. The champion gets in another right hand to take over before things slow down again.

A small package gets two for Flair as does a butterfly suplex. The knee drop hits this time but Flair hurts his own knee in the process. Flair hooks the Figure Four and Bret is in real trouble now. He finally turns it over to escape but is still in a lot of trouble. Flair stays on the bad leg but can’t hook the Figure Four. Bret charges into a boot in the corner but pops up fast enough to slam Flair off the top (a Flair trademark). Bret starts his comeback with a Russian legsweep and a middle rope elbow for two. A superplex puts Flair down and just like that it’s the Sharpshooter for the submission and the title, SHOCKING the crowd.

Rating: A. Like I said, there was almost no way this wasn’t going to be great. This was a great example of making someone into a new champion as Flair put Bret over clean in the middle of the ring after a twenty five minute plus masterpiece. They made a new star here and that was desperately needed given the changing of the guard.

One of Bret’s biggest feuds was with his brother Owen, who said that Bret was holding him back and wanted to get out of Bret’s shadow. His chance came at Wrestlemania X.

Owen Hart vs. Bret Hart

For reasons I’m not clear on, the Fink isn’t the announcer tonight. They lock up to start and Owen shoves Bret away, earning himself some celebrating. Bret takes him down to the mat but Owen escapes and celebrates again. Back to the mat for some amateur stuff but Owen grabs the rope. Owen tries to take it to the mat but Bret easily counters to send him out to the floor. Back in and Owen slaps him in the face to fire up his older brother.

More amateur stuff ensues and Owen gets to do his spinning counter to a wristlock, only to pull Bret down by the hair. Bret channels his inner Shawn and nips up before getting two off a rollup. Bret takes over with an armbar and a clothesline to send Owen out to the floor. Back in again and Bret slaps the blonde Hart before rolling him up for two. Bret hooks the armbar again before getting two off a crucifix. We’re about five minutes into this now and there is absolutely nothing to complain about. They get up again and Owen hits a sweet spinwheel kick to take over before stomping Bret to the floor.

Owen rams Bret back first into the post as the anger is starting to seep out. A backbreaker sets up a camel clutch back inside as Lawler is loving this. Owen yells at his brother in a great touch to the evilness. Bret breaks it pretty quickly but walks into a belly to belly suplex for two. A cross body by Owen is rolled through by Bret for two but Owen goes straight to the back again. Owen hits a German suplex for two and drops a leg on the back of Bret’s head for two more.

Bret tries to spin out of a suplex but gets caught in a tombstone. Owen goes up top but misses a swan dive, giving Bret the breather that he’s been needing. Bret starts firing back and gets two each off a clothesline and a Russian legsweep. There’s the backbreaker followed by the middle rope elbow for two more. It’s Sharpshooter time but Owen pops up and hits the enziguri to put Bret down.

Another Sharpshooter attempt is countered by Owen and a rollup gets two on Bret. This is very fast paced stuff. Owen heads to the floor and we get LUCHA BRET as he takes out his brother. He hurts his knee in the process though and Owen is very happy. Back inside and Owen goes for the leg, wrapping it around the post a few times because that’s what villains do. Off to an inverted Indian Deathlock by Owen but he lets it go before too long.

There’s a yet to be named dragon screw leg whip followed by a Figure Four (wrong leg of course) as Bret is in big trouble. Bret reverses and rolls into the ropes to break the hold but his knee is gone. An enziguri finally puts Owen down and buys big brother a breather. A headbutt puts Owen down again and there’s the chest first into the buckle bump for Owen. A bulldog gets two on Owen as does a sweet piledriver.

There’s a superplex for a delayed two as Jerry Lawler is freaking out. A sleeper is quickly broken up by a hidden low blow from Owen and it’s time for the Sharpshooter on Bret. The older Hart slaps the mat but it doesn’t mean anything yet. Bret reverses into a Sharpshooter of his own but Owen is right in front of the ropes. Owen charges into a boot in the corner so Bret loads up a rollup, but Owen counters into a cradle for the 100% clean pin.

Rating: A+. If there’s a better opening match anywhere, I’d love to see it. This was Owen’s coming out party and he looked excellent in doing it. Bret has no shame in losing here as he didn’t so much get beat as much as he got caught. This set up a great feud over the summer for the title between these two, but it never reached this level again. There was some DEEP psychology going on out there with Bret being hesitant to fight his brother and Owen using the advantage to catch Bret in a wrestling move, all on top of the leg injury. Excellent match and one of the best ever.

Back in the late 80s, Bret was finally getting a long promised singles run, including this match with Bad News Brown at Wrestlefest 1988. This was set up by the Wrestlemania IV battle royal where Brown double crossed Bret to win so Bret broke his trophy.

Bad News Brown vs. Bret Hart

This is fallout from the Mania battle royal and Bret is officially a face now. Brown would get a short feud with Randy Savage soon after this which was very interesting although it never went anywhere really. The referee gets on Brown for being too evil and Brown tells him not to worry about it. That’s a nice line actually.

Brown goes up and Bret is, say it with me, PLAYING POSSUM. Why would anyone buy Bret selling anything ever? It’s what he does and he does it better than anyone. Bret can’t get anything of note going here. Brown yells out for the Ghetto Blaster, his running enziguri finisher. Here comes the Hitman who might not have that name yet. He hits a sweet dive over the top and Brown is in trouble now.

They crank it up and the match starts getting good. Bret doesn’t have the Sharpshooter yet so he’s going for whatever he can get to get a pin. He hits some of the five moves of doom but after a rollup Brown reverses into one of his own and uses the tights for a win. Neidhart comes out and they both beat down Brown to an extent. I’d love to see them in a real fight as Brown would massacre them.

Rating: B-. Solid little match here as neither guy meant anything yet. Hart was supposed to be showcasing himself here and he did that quite well. He looked like this fast guy that could brawl and have solid matches to go with it. Then they put him back with Neidhart a few weeks/months later and this was completely forgotten about of course.

Bret’s start in the WWF came as part of the Hart Foundation, a tag team with Jim Neidhart. After they fell far down the card, the team made a comeback in the early 90s and had a shot at the titles at Summerslam 1990.

Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. Demolition

This is 2/3 falls and Demolition is defending. Basically the Harts have about as much chance coming into this as I have at being Miss America 1974. Bret starts with Smash but the Harts knock Crush to the floor before anything gets going. Things settle down and Bret gets a quick rollup for two. Anvil comes in to crank on Smash’s arm before Bret comes back in with a fist to the back. Smash tries to get into a technical match with Bret and gets caught in an armbar for his stupidity.

Smash finally slams Bret down and brings in Crush, only to have Bret avoid an elbow and pound away. Crush charges into a boot in the corner and gets rolled up for two before it’s off to Neidhart vs. Smash, only to have Crush kick Jim in the back to give the champions the advantage. Crush comes in again and misses a charge into the corner, allowing for another double tag to Bret and Smash. Neidhart falls to the floor as everything breaks down. Smash is whipped into Crush and Bret gets two off the middle rope elbow but here’s Crush again. The Decapitator to Bret is enough for the first fall.

The second fall begins with Crush hitting a hard clothesline on Bret and Smash pounding on the chest. After a quick neck crank by Crush, Bret fires off the Hart Attack clothesline on Smash, allowing for the hot tag to Neidhart. A powerslam gets two on Smash and Bret launches Anvil into Smash in the corner. The Hart Attack takes Smash down but Crush breaks up the pin for the DQ to make it 1-1. Why they didn’t let the Harts get the pin there is beyond me.

During the break between falls, Demolition knocks Bret to the floor, allowing Ax to run down and sneak under the ring. The third fall starts with Bret getting two off a sunset flip before taking Smash down by the leg. Neidhart picks Bret up for the reverse powerslam for two on Smash. Now things get tricky as Smash rolls to the floor and rolls under the ring, switching places with Ax.

The idea is that Ax and Smash look so much alike that the referee can’t tell them apart. This is fine except for one problem: THEY DON’T LOOK ALIKE! Ax is taller, heavier set and has a rounder head, not to mention a deeper voice. This reasoning never made sense to me as a kid and it still doesn’t to this day.

Anyway the fresh Ax destroys Bret and gets two off Bret’s chest bump in the corner. Anvil comes in sans tag as Smash takes Ax’s place again. They try to switch again and the Legion of Doom come out to break it up. Smash goes after Hawk and Animal as Anvil shoulder blocks Crush into a rollup by Bret for the pin and the titles. The place comes unglued as the Harts have shocked the world.

Rating: B. That’s probably a bit high but I love this match. The wrestling is just ok but the storytelling is as good as you’ll get in a tag match with the LOD coming out to even things up, allowing the Harts to finally do the impossible and win the titles. This is a popular match among old school fans and if you watch it you’ll see why.

Hart’s first singles title was the Intercontinental Title which he won in the summer of 1991. He would lose it to the Mountie due to a storyline illness and Mountie would lose it two days later to Roddy Piper. Bret got a shot at Piper at Wrestlemania VIII.

Intercontinental Title: Roddy Piper vs. Bret Hart

Piper is defending. There’s a story here actually: Bret was “sick” and lost the title to Mountie, only to have Piper win it about a day and a half later. This is Bret’s rematch. Heenan: “How would you handle Piper if you were Bret?” Gorilla: “I would use my speed advantage. You?” Heenan: “Waffle him with a tire iron.” Bret takes him down to start and Piper spits in his face, basically becoming the heel of the match early on.

They trade arm holds to start but Piper can’t escape Bret’s non-evil clutches. Once he finally frees himself, it’s a dropkick to put Roddy down instead. Bret might have hurt his shoulder in the process, but of course he’s goldbricking, which gives him a two count via a small package. Piper slaps him in the face so Bret cross bodies both guys to the outside. Back in and Piper gets in a cheap shot which apparently busts Bret open. This was a big deal actually as Bret claimed it was a legit cut but in reality he bladed and lied to prevent punishment and still make it look good. Smart guy that Hitman.

Roddy pounds away for awhile and is reverting to his old style far more than he has in years. Bret comes back with a sunset flip for two and the mat is getting bloody in a hurry. Piper punches him down for two but Bret comes back with a forearm to send the champion to the outside. Back in and a double clothesline puts both guys down. Piper’s head lands on Bret’s ribs which should be a count but the referee sits up instead. Roddy goes up but Bret is goldbricking again, allowing him to slam Piper face first into the mat.

A suplex gets two for Hart and it’s time for the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM. Piper blocks the Sharpshooter though, so Bret settles for the middle rope elbow. Roddy blocks that too though with a boot to the face and they slug it out again. There goes the referee and Piper clotheslines Bret to the outside. As they come back in, Roddy grabs the ring bell to complete the heel turn. He lifts it up to crush Bret, only to stop himself and put on a sleeper instead. That proves to be his downfall though as Bret climbs up the corner and falls back on Piper for the pin and the title.

Rating: B+. This might be Piper’s best matches ever but even rarer is seeing him pinned in the WWF. Piper was VERY protective of his character, meaning that he was very rarely pinned. The match was great here and wound up being Piper’s last match in the company for several years. Really good stuff here as Bret is on the verge of shooting up the card to the world title in the fall.

We’ll actually look at a WCW match. From Souled Out 1998 in Bret’s first big match in WCW. They’re fighting over who is better and there’s not much else to it.

Ric Flair vs. Bret Hart

This is your basic battle for respect. Bret has a column in the Calgary Sun newspaper and said that he was better than Flair. That wasn’t cool with Ric and we had a main event. This is Bret’s in ring debut for WCW. Feeling out process to start until Bret takes over with a headlock. Flair reverses into one of his own and runs Bret over with a shoulder as we’re still in first gear.

Bret grabs a Figure Four of all things but Flair is almost immediately in the ropes. A suplex gets two for Hart and it’s chinlock time. Flair fights up but loses a battle of top wristlocks, allowing Bret to take him back down with an armbar. Bret slaps him out to the floor and Flair takes a breather. Back in and Hart puts on the headlock again to keep Flair at a slow pace. Flair fights up and pounds away in the corner and suplexes his way out of a quick sleeper.

Ric has the referee check the time so he can hit Bret low like only Naitch can. A knee drop gets two and it’s off to a chinlock on Hart. Back up and they slug it out until Bret grabs a neckbreaker to put both guys down. Hart gets two off a bulldog and it’s time to go for the leg. He cannonballs down onto the knee and loads up the Figure Four around the post, only to have Flair kick him back into the barricade. Back in and it’s Ric’s turn to go after the knee with the knee crusher and a few pulls on the leg.

The Figure Four is countered into a small package by Bret but now the Figure Four works for Flair. Bret finally turns it over to escape before slamming Ric off the top. Bret comes right back with a Russian legsweep and takes down his straps so Flair can chop him even harder. The Five Moves of Doom set up a superplex which sets up the Sharpshooter for the submission.

Rating: B-. Solid match here but it wasn’t going to be able to live up to the hype. It’s a great debut for Bret and good proof that he still has it with an ending that makes sense. The match was all about respect and Bret won the match with pure wrestling skill and a submission hold. That’s the right choice.

Another Hart Foundation match, this time against probably their biggest rivals: the British Bulldogs.

British Bulldogs vs. Hart Foundation

That was their first match in MSG, and this is their second. Joined in progress with Dynamite and Bret getting us going. The Brits clean house until the power guys come in for a test of strength. Bret comes back in and the Harts take over with some nice double teaming stuff. Bret misses a charge and knees Anvil by mistake to bring in Dynamite.

House is cleaned and everything speeds up. There’s a falling headbutt to Bret as things finally get down to one on one. Missile dropkick puts Bret down and there’s the powerslam but Jim breaks up the cover. That allows Bret to take over and the Harts dominate. Dynamite hooks a sunset flip but the curfew comes on. That means it’s I think 10pm in New York and therefore the show has to end. Imagine that happening today.

Rating: C+. Good stuff here but there’s only so much they can do with so little time. These teams just couldn’t have a bad match in this time period if their lives depended on it. Dynamite was so great with his speed stuff and it’s easy to see how Benoit modeled himself after the Kid. Fun match, would have been great with a finish.

Here’s a singles version, from Toronto in I think 1986.

Dynamite Kid vs. Bret Hart

I think we’re in Toronto here so the crowd is likely going to be split. Bret hits the floor almost immediately as he’s in the blue here. Gorilla talks about a Rolls Royce giveaway which would be at the Wrestling Classic, the first PPV (kind of). Dynamite grabs a slingshot and sends Bret into the corner so he hits the floor again. This referee is counting very quickly.

Hayes sounds very drunk here. Bret keeps hiding as he was a great heel back in the day. Great snap suplex gets two for Dynamite and we hit the chinlock. We’re getting replays in this match so I keep thinking we’re having cuts but they’re just replays. Dynamite reverses a wristlock into one of his own. Since he’s not sure what else to do, Bret cheats and takes over.

Apparently we’re in Maryland. I thought only Toronto had the tilted camera. Ok then. Bret drags him around by the hair because he’s evil. A few legdrops get no cover as it’s all Bret at the moment. Out to the floor and Bret slams him. That referee looks oddly familiar. Dynamite grabs a sunset flip out of nowhere for two but Bret knocks him right back down.

Hayes calls a European uppercut a forearm. Shouldn’t he know better than that? Backslide gets two for Dynamite. Over to the ropes and Dynamite is all tied up. A charge misses and Bret jumps into the ropes very hard. Clothesline sets up a standing diving headbutt for no cover. Bret gets to do his chest into the buckle spot. Knee drop gets two for the Kid. Good match so far.

A belly to back gets two so Dynamite gets a middle rope knee for a very close two. Dynamite trips over Bret on a criss cross and Bret shoves him to the floor. Back in and Dynamite grabs an O’Connor Roll out of nowhere for the pin (called a reverse sunset flip by Monsoon).

Rating: B. Good stuff here as you would expect given the participants. These two wrestled probably 9000 times in Stampede so this was old hat for them. Good match though as those matches made them good against each other. Bret’s singles push was years ago but what else are you going to do?

As mentioned, Bret’s first singles title was the Intercontinental Title. Here’s the classic that won him the belt.

Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart

Perfect has been champion since last November so he’s a pretty big deal. He also has his Coach (former wrestler John Tolos) with him. Stu and Helen Hart are in the audience to watch their son. Feeling out process to start with Bret scoring first by hip tossing Perfect to the floor. Back in and Bret grabs a headlock followed by a crucifix for two. Bret puts the headlock on again as Heenan and Piper are going to war on commentary. Gorilla: “WILL YOU STOP???”

Perfect grabs at the hair to escape and chops Bret’s chest off. A slam puts Bret down but he kicks Perfect away and slams him down, only to have Perfect kick him right back. Bret is all like screw this wrestling stuff and clotheslines Perfect to the floor. The champ tries to run but Bret throws him back in and the dude in pink is mad. Perfect gets in a HARD kick to the ribs and Bret is sent to the floor where Coach whistles at him.

Bret tries to get up but is knocked off the apron and right on top of a production guy who has a very confused look on his face. Back in and Bret jumps over Perfect in the corner and gets two off a rollup. The fans are WAY into this so far. Perfect sends Bret chest first into the buckle to take over again as Heenan is starting to lose his marbles. Another hard whip into the buckle gets two for the champion followed by the Hennig neck snap for two more.

Hart is sent to the floor for a bit and they both come back in on the top. It’s Bret crashing down to the mat to give Perfect two as Heenan is thinking Perfect should get himself disqualified. The champ hooks a sleeper but Bret fights up into a crucifix, only to be dropped down into a Samoan drop for two. The PerfectPlex looks to finish Bret but it only gets two, sending MSG into delirium.

Back up and Bret fights back, sending Perfect across the ring and crotch first into the post. A suplex and small package get two each for Bret and it’s Five Moves of Doom time. Bret yells at the referee and gets rolled up for two before Bret starts going after the knee. He loads up the Sharpshooter but he has to knock Coach to the floor. The distraction lets Perfect get in a shot to take over. Perfect drops a leg between Bret’s legs but as he tries it again, Bret grabs the leg and puts the Sharpshooter on from his back. He turns the hold over and Perfect submits really fast but it’s good for Bret’s first singles title.

Rating: A. Oh come on it’s Bret vs. Perfect from Summerslam 91. Do I really need to explain this one? It’s one of the best matches of all time and holds up over twenty years later. The counter by Bret is a great way to show how solid of a mat wrestler he was. Kicking out of the PerfectPlex was the perfect idea as Bret took the champ’s best shots and still won. It’s still excellent and required viewing for wrestling fans.

Bret was also involved in the first ladder match in the WWF. From late 1991.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

This is a ladder match obviously. Like I said these were used back in Stampede and one day Bret suggested to Vince that they use one in WWF. This is the result. This is from about 92 and would be from before Summerslam. Bret is champion for those of you that don’t know your history. Gorilla suggests that the title is vacant at the moment. That’s kind of true actually.

The ladder is really far away at the moment so it’s really more like a normal match to start us off. Shawn makes a diving save to keep Bret from getting the ladder, which is kind of stupid since there’s no advantage in having the ladder first, but to be fair this is the first go around so there’s no psychology or history to go off of here. Gorilla says breast. I’m scarred for life. Sherri stops Bret from going up but Bret saves it by nailing Shawn.

This is one of those matches that’s hard to critique as they have no idea what they’re doing and more or less are inventing these spots as they go. Also it’s good given the two in there so it’s not like it’s easy to crack jokes. Shawn touches the belt but can’t get there. Why is it so hard for people to realize how tall they are? In nearly every ladder match, someone touches the bottom of the belt for like 15 seconds as they apparently forget that there are more rungs to it.

Bret hits Shawn with a slingshot into the corner. Bret then does it AGAIN. Misjudges the height I mean. Dang dude you knew it like 2 minutes ago. How did you forget it that fast? They both go up at the same time and down it comes. Shawn hits Sweet Chin Music before it’s known as that but it’s a patented move by this point. Instead his finisher is that stupid suplex but whatever. Shawn does the same mistake with the height and Bret dropkicks the ladder so that Shawn gets crotched on the top. Bret climbs up and retains the belt.

Rating: A. This was a great match. Now one thing you have to keep in mind is that they have NO idea what they’re doing here. By today’s standards, this is a weak ladder match. But remember, this had never been done in this company before. They were just trying random stuff out there and it worked. Also, this is more about Bret vs. Shawn rather than the ladder, and that combination is rarely bad. Great match all around though and fun to watch.

Over his career, Bret was known for putting people over. One of the people he did that for better than probably anyone was Steve Austin in a two match series, starting with Survivor Series 1996.

Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart

They stare each other down in the middle of the ring and Austin flips Hart off. This feels like a huge fight which is exactly what it’s supposed to do. Austin takes Bret into the corner and gives a clean break. Bret goes for Austin’s leg and they go into the corner as well for another clean break. I love matches where the guys mirror each other. JR says neither of these guys have ever submitted in the WWF. That’s not actually true but we’ll go with it for the sake of simplicity.

Austin actually wins a technical battle and cranks on the arm. Bret does the same and adds a hammerlock. They fight for wristlocks and Bret takes it to the mat, working on the arm. Austin fights up and takes his head off with an elbow. Bret stays technical, Austin turns it into a brawl. This is going to have some good psychology in it I’d assume. Bret takes it right back to the mat and cranks on the arm again.

Back up and Austin drops Bret with a Stun Gun and immediately chokes. Hit the neck, work on the neck. It’s not complicated. Austin stomps on the neck and throat before slingshotting Bret’s throat into the bottom rope. An elbow to the neck/chest sends Bret to the floor and Austin is starting to roll. Back in and Austin hooks a chinlock before dropping knees to the chest/throat for two.

They slug it out with Austin knocking Bret into the corner. Bret comes back with an atomic drop (which Vince calls a reverse piledriver because he’s Vince McMahon and isn’t a very good announcer) and a clothesline followed by a Russian legsweep for two. A bulldog attempt by Hart is countered by sending him chest first into the buckle. Austin loads up a superplex but Bret slams him down and hits a top rope elbow for a delayed two.

Austin escapes a backbreaker with a rake of the eyes as momentum shifts again. Bret gets sent to the floor and Austin just pounds on him with forearms and punches. Austin rams him back first into the post as the attacks shifts to the back. Bret comes back by sending him into the barricade, breaking the thing apart. They head into the front row and knock the barricade over. Austin is in trouble again and Bret chases him to the other side of the ring.

Steve is like screw this defense thing and sling shots Bret onto the Spanish announce table. They fight underneath the table with Austin pounding away. Austin was a smart heel in that instead of standing around, he wanted to beat on Bret even more when he had Bret down. Back in and Austin drops a middle rope elbow for two. A running crotch attack to Bret’s back gets another two and Austin is getting frustrated.

Off to an abdominal stretch and of course Austin grabs the rope. Back up and Bret wins a slugout before Stun Gunning Austin right back to take over again. A piledriver puts Steve down for two and Bret is exhausted. Bret hits a backbreaker and goes up, only to get crotched and superplexed down. Austin has that look in his eye where you know he’s feeling it. Bret hooks Austin’s feet after the superplex but only gets two.

Bret goes after Austin and walks into a Stunner but it only gets two. It gets another two and make that four. Austin is all ticked off now and pounds away at Bret before getting two more. He puts Bret in a solid Texas Cloverleaf but Bret still won’t quit. He makes the rope and the fans breathe a sigh of relief. Austin sends him into the corner but Bret’s knee gives out and Bret’s back hits the post.

That gets two and Austin goes back to the Cloverleaf. Scratch that as he makes it a bow and arrow instead. It’s amazing how much different that broken neck made Austin. He’s a completely different guy here and it works really well too. Austin grabs the ropes to block a Sharpshooter and there’s a sleeper but Austin hits a jawbreaker to escape. Austin slaps on the Million Dollar Dream but Bret climbs up the buckles and backflips onto Austin for the surprise pin. Steve is stunned, no pun intended. Apparently this was a #1 contenders match. Ok then.

Rating: A+. It’s Austin vs. Hart for 25 minutes. Were you expecting anything but a masterpiece? This match isn’t remembered for one reason: they had a rematch which is one of the greatest matches of all time. This however is liked better by a lot of people and I can easily get that. This is a pure, hard hitting wrestling match which ends with a wrestling counter. The psychology here is incredible with Austin wanting to prove he can go move for move with Bret before finally getting outsmarted when Austin was frustrated and trying one of his old moves. This is one of the best pairings of all time.

I don’t think this match needs an introduction. From Summerslam 1992.

Intercontinental Title: Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith

Bulldog has British Commonwealth boxing champion Lennox Lewis leading him to the ring and carrying the Union Jack. The place comes unglued for Davey but Bret isn’t booed at all, as his style is perfect for a crowd like this. Bulldog shoves him into the corner to start before hitting a hard shoulder to send the champion to the floor. Back in and they head to the mat with Bret grabbing a headlock to take over. Bret gets a few near falls off some rollups and it’s right back to the headlock.

Back up again and Davey grabs a hammerlock but Bret hits a HARD elbow to the face to escape, drawing the ire of the fans. Davey takes him down with basic technique and cranks on the armbar. The hold stays on for a good while with the fans getting louder and louder the longer Smith has control. Bret finally sends him into the ropes to escape and drives a knee into Smith’s ribs. The fans boo Hart out of the stadium for a basic move like a knee and boo even louder for a chinlock.

An atomic drop (called a reverse piledriver by Vince) puts Smith down and Bret blocks a crucifix (which worked earlier) in a Samoan Drop for two. Another chinlock is quickly broken but Davey charges into a boot in the corner to put him down again. A bulldog puts Bulldog down but he slams Bret off the top a second later. Davey misses a top rope splash and is sent to the outside, drawing a ton of heat for Bret.

The champion tries a dive to the floor but lands on Davey’s back, nearly breaking several bones in the process. Bret sends him into the post before heading back inside pounding away with European uppercuts. Hart hooks a chinlock for a good while before loading up the Five Moves of Doom. He pulls Bulldog up by the hair to show how evil he is and it’s off to a sleeper. This stays on for a LONG time as well but Smith rams him into the corner to escape again.

They slug it out but Davey drops him out of a gorilla press into the ropes. Three straight clotheslines get two for Smith and a gorilla press gets the same. The delayed vertical and the chest first bump into the buckle get the same. Bulldog hits his powerslam finisher but Bret gets out at two, with far less of a reaction from the crowd than you would expect. Bret rolls through a suplex for two of his own, only to get superplexed down for a near fall.

Back up again and a double clothesline puts both guys down, giving the fans a needed breather. While laying on his back Bret hooks the Sharpshooter ala last year against Mr. Perfect, terrifying the fans. Smith gets the rope so Bret tries a suplex, but Davey drops to his knees and hooks both legs for the pin and the title. The place ERUPTS on the three count.

Rating: A+. This took awhile to get going but once those near falls started it turns into an instant classic. Davey had to win here and it was a perfectly clean pin in the middle of the ring. Bret, ever the critic, doesn’t like this match and basically blames the whole thing on Smith for being spent five minutes in. Those of us in the real world see it for what it is: a masterpiece.

In 1997, Bret turned heel and became the Canadian hero. He restarted the Hart Foundation and went to war against Steve Austin and America as a whole. After defeating the Rattlesnake, Bret wanted the WWF Title again. He got his chance at Summerslam 1997.

WWF World Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

Remember that Shawn is guest referee. Bret hits Undertaker in the back with the belt to start and pounds away but Undertaker throws him away and out to the floor. The champion misses a charge into the post and is sent knees first into the steps by the Canadian. Bret tries to jump off the apron at Taker but is caught in midair and slammed into the post. Back in and Undertaker works on Bret’s back before sending him into the corner a few times.

Off to a bearhug on Hart followed by a big boot to the face, but Taker misses a legdrop. A second big boot misses though and Bret goes after the knee. Hart cannonballs down onto Taker’s knee and kicks the leg out from under the 6’10 champion. As a small sidebar, Vince says that you’re not 6’10 when you’re on the mat. I’m pretty sure he still is actually, but he just can’t use that height advantage.

Hart cranks on the leg even more and puts on the Figure Four for good measure. This brings out Paul Bearer for some reason which angers the champion. Undertaker turns the hold over to escape before going after Bearer. Bret uses the distraction to jump Undertaker from behind and send him into the barricade. There’s the Figure Four around the post by Bret as he stays on Taker’s leg. Owen Hart and Brian Pillman of the Hart Foundation come out to ringside.

Taker’s leg is wrapped around another post and Bret flips off a yelling fan. Shawn hasn’t been a factor as referee yet. Back in and Bret puts on another leg lock but Taker rolls it over and uses the good leg to kick Bret in the face. With no provocation, Undertaker drops to the floor and beats up Owen and Pillman. Back in and there’s the chokeslam but Shawn is watching for more Harts. Bret heads to the floor and rams Undertaker’s back into the apron and post to take over again.

Shawn tells Bret to get back inside or the match is over. They head into the ring again with Bret getting two off a backbreaker. A suplex puts Undertaker down again and there’s the middle rope elbow for two. Bret hits a DDT for the same but Undertaker drops him face first onto the turnbuckle for two of his own. Hart goes after the back again but can’t hook the Sharpshooter. The chokeslam is countered with a kick to the leg but Undertaker hits an uppercut to put Bret down.

Undertaker hits his jumping clothesline to take over again before whipping Bret chest first into the buckle for two. Bret tries to go up but gets chokeslammed down off the top for a close two. Old School is countered and Bret superplexes Undertaker down but he can’t cover. Instead he puts on the Sharpshooter but Undertaker kicks him away, which is the first time the hold has been completely broken. Another clothesline puts Bret down but he escapes the Tombstone and puts on the Sharpshooter around the post in a new move. Taker kicks him off and he crushes Shawn in the process though.

Bret brings a chair into the ring and lays out Undertaker with no Michaels to see it. Shawn limps back into the ring but the count only gets two. Bret erupts on Shawn and flips him off before pounding away in the corner again. Shawn picks up the chair and is spat on by Bret. Shawn swings the chair but knocks Undertaker out cold, giving Bret the pin and the title.

Rating: B+. This took a lot of time to get going but with thirty minutes to use they had more than enough time to waste. Hart winning was definitely the right move after he spent all summer on top of the company. This opened up a lot more options than Taker was providing, which is what a champion is supposed to do.

There’s one more match to close it out and it might be the best match ever.

Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart

This is a submission match and Ken Shamrock is guest referee. Austin has actual glass shatter as he enters which is rather cool. He gets cheered but Bret gets something resembling a mixed reaction. Austin tackles him down to start and the fight is on immediately. They head to the floor with neither guy being able to get an advantage. Austin gets posted but he manages to crotch Bret on the barricade. Bret gets clotheslined into the crowd as this is all action so far.

Bret gets in a few shots in the audience and Shamrock is right with them. Presumably this is falls count anywhere. Bret gets in a solid right hand but Austin grabs him for a piledriver. Hart counters with a backdrop and they head back towards the ring. Back to ringside and Bret dives off the barricade with a forearm to the back. Austin comes right back by whipping Hart into the steps to put him down again.

Steve hits a forearm off the apron before picking up the steps. Bret kicks him in the ribs though and the steps might have crushed Austin’s leg. As they get back in the ring (remember that thing?) Bret guillotines Austin on the top rope to take over again. Bret cranks on the leg and cannonballs down on it ala Flair. More cranking ensues and Hart wants him to get up. Bret misses another cannonball and Austin ERUPTS with a clothesline to put both guys down.

We get some foreshadowing by Lawler when he says you can’t give up when you’re unconscious. Hart comes back with a kick to the leg and throws on the Figure Four around the post. Bret goes to get the bell but switches over to a chair. That one has too much padding on it though so he gets a regular chair to Pillmanize the ankle with. The fans are getting WAY into this. Bret goes up top but Austin crotches him and CRACKS him with the chair.

Another big chair shot to the back sets up a suplex as Hart is in big trouble all of a sudden. A middle rope elbow from Austin hits Bret as JR is in full on JR mode, including a few jabs at WCW (“This isn’t about posing or covering a bald spot!”). Austin this another Bret move in the Russian legsweep followed by a reverse Koji Clutch (as in he cranks on the arm while wrapping his leg around Bret’s head. That’s a bit too complicated for Austin though so there’s a Boston Crab instead.

Bret makes a rope because in a war like this, let’s make sure we follow the rules. Austin loads up a Sharpshooter (he has no idea how to get it on) but Austin escapes. Steve fires him through the ropes and to the floor. Bret comes back and reverses a whip into the barricade while running over a few people in the process. Austin is bleeding and it’s a GUSHER. Bret sends him into the steps and pounds away at the cut as we head back inside.

Hart pounds away even harder at Austin’s forehead before hitting the Five Moves of Doom. Bret gets the chair as Vince says this is becoming too much to watch. Hart drives the chair into the leg over and over again but he can’t get the Sharpshooter again. The mat is covered in blood. Austin comes back with a low blow but he can barely stand up. He whips Bret chest first into the corner and here comes the Rattlesnake. Austin stomps the mudhole in Bret and the double bird gets a big reaction from the fans.

Austin puts Bret on top and superplexes him back down. You can’t see Austin’s forehead from all the blood. Since nothing else works, Austin goes to the floor and gets the electrical cable to choke Bret out. Hart grabs the bell from somewhere though and blasts Austin in the head, knocking him silly. Now the Sharpshooter goes on and the place goes NUTS. Austin’s head is on the mat and you can see the blood pooling up under him. That is SICK.

The crowd starts chanting for Austin and we get one of the most famous shot in company history as Austin screams into the camera with blood flowing down his face. He gets one last rush of adrenaline to push up and break the Sharpshooter for the first time ever. Well kind of as he gets Bret off his back but couldn’t break the grip. Bret gets the hold back on but Austin will not quit. Austin is out cold and Shamrock finally stops it. Austin never gave up.

Rating: A+. This is the highest rating a match can get. If there was a higher rating, this match would get that. This is one of the greatest wars you will ever see in a ring with some of the greatest storytelling you’ll ever see either. The idea of Bret being taken out of his element, only to get sucked into Austin’s world where he reaches a point that he’s never been to before but it’s STILL not enough to stop Austin is amazing and works to this day. The key point here: Hart could not stop Austin. He could only slow him down. Absolutely amazing and if you haven’t seen this, go find it right now. Seriously, go watch it now. It’s excellent.

Post match Bret is disgusted with himself but looks at Austin’s lifeless body and gets mad all over again for not being able to make Austin quit. Bret goes after the leg again but Shamrock grabs him and hooks a kind of suplex to get Hart off. Shamrock says let’s go if you want to but Bret backs down and leaves. The fans GO OFF on Bret as Austin is trying to remember what planet he’s on. A referee comes out to check on him and gets a Stunner for his troubles. Austin walks out on his own power and gets a well deserved standing ovation. And that my friends, is a double turn.

It’s Bret Hart. I’m done.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Clash of the Champions at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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These are always interesting.

50. Scott Steiner

49. Joel Gertner

48. Jimmy Valiant

47. Zeb Colter

46. New Jack

45. Grand Wizard

44. Brian Pillman

43. JBL

42. Thunderbolt Patterson

41. The Miz

40. Kevin Sullivan

39. William Regal

38. Taz

37. Stephanie McMahon

36. Ernie Ladd

35. Kurt Angle

34. Bray Wyatt

33. Rick Rude

32. Gary Hart

31. Ultimate Warrior

30. Michael PS Hayes

29. Nick Bockwinkle

28. Raven

27. Jesse Ventura

26. Jerry Lawler

25. Ted DiBiase

24. Terry Funk

23. Shawn Michaels

22. Harley Race

21. Edge

20. Captain Lou Albano

19. HHH

18. Randy Savage

17. Jim Cornette

16. CM Punk

15. Arn Anderson

14. Billy Graham

13. Vince McMahon

12. John Cena

11. Jake Roberts

10. Chris Jericho

9. Hulk Hogan

8. Bobby Heenan

7. Mick Foley

6. Paul Heyman

5. Dusty Rhodes

4. Steve Austin

3. Roddy Piper

2. The Rock

1. Ric Flair

I’m really not feeling Flair as #1 but this is WWE so ALL HAIL FLAIR. Cena not being in the top ten is highly questionable and I’d put Jericho above Dusty.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Clash of the Champions at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

Today it’s Super Super Superfly Jimmy Snuka.

Snuka got started in 1969 but stuff from that era is very hard to find. Therefore we’ll jump ahead ten years to the NWA in 1979 where Jimmy and Paul Orndorff are World Tag Team Champions.

Jimmy Snuka/Paul Orndorff vs. Frank Monte/Brute Bernard

Non-title as Jimmy starts with Monte. Jimmy runs him down and nips up after a hiptoss. A shoulder puts Monte down as well so it’s off to the bigger Bernard. Orndorff comes in and the commentator has the most complete profile I’ve ever seen, including Orndorff’s hometown, height, weight, astrological sign, favorite food, favorite sport other than wrestling (boxing), football career and hobbies. Jimmy comes back in and we hear an abbreviated profile as the non-champions take over. Snuka fights up and falls into the tag to Orndorff for some house cleaning. Back to Snuka for a slam and the Splash for the pin.

Rating: D+. Not much to see here but that announcer had done his research. I mean….ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS? Jim Ross would think this was going too in depth. It’s so strange to see Snuka and Orndorff as young guys, even though Snuka was a seasoned veteran around this time.

It was soon off to the WWF where Snuka would become a big deal almost immediately. Here’s Jimmy challenging for the Intercontinental Title in Philadelphia on May 22, 1982.

Intercontinental Title: Pedro Morales vs. Jimmy Snuka

Snuka has only been around for a few months at this point but the fans are loving him, despite him being a heel. The announcers aren’t sure what to do with him because they know he’s popular but he’s supposed to be the evil savage. He has a thing for flowers apparently. Snuka wrestles barefoot which is another thing that made him different. The fans here are split which is a weird sight.

They fight over a top wristlock to start and Snuka complains of a hair pull. Snuka takes it to the mat with arm control and Dick Worhle is the referee. He died a few days ago so that’s kind of sad to see. Now Snuka pulls the hair to keep the advantage. See how easy a heel move that is? Such little things like that one are just lost in modern wrestling.

Snuka runs him over and headbutts Pedro down as the fans applaud. Now keep in mind: Pedro is a very popular guy. He held the IC Title forever and was a former world champion. However, Snuka was a totally different kind of guy and the fans, especially the Philly crazy people, took notice and loved him. Pedro is in trouble and gets knocked to the floor by a forearm. All Snuka so far.

Out to the floor and Pedro goes into the apron. Back in and Pedro is almost knocked right back out. Off to a chinlock for a few moments and Pedro FINALLY gets up. He hits his first decent offense of the match in the form of a backdrop but Snuka takes him right back down again. A middle rope headbutt half kills Pedro and you would think that Snuka was the top guy in the company based on the fans’ reactions.

That only gets two though and Snuka has a headache from the headbutt. Pedro grabs the face and works it over (that’s not something I’m used to typing) and starts his comeback. He hits his big left and Jimmy looks like he’s dancing. Out to the floor and Snuka tastes the steel. A BIG left hand sends Snuka flying into the ropes. Snuka rakes the eyes which doesn’t really do much good. Pedro hits a knee to the chin and then shoves the referee because of that firey Latin temper of him. Now Pedro throws him to the floor and it’s a LAME DQ.

Rating: C+. Well it wasn’t a classic or anything as Pedro was way too fond of just throwing the left hand but the crowd was very energetic for this as they were both very popular guys. Notice that the match is very similar to the rest of them but the names are bigger. There wasn’t much variety in this era and it shows badly at times.

Pedro throws the referee down again and again. Snuka nails Worhle and the brawl continues. Out to the floor and Snuka goes into the post. They KEEP FIGHTING and Snuka headbutts both Morales and the referee at the same time. Snuka finally leaves and the fans aren’t pleased with Pedro. Cool brawl though. Morales is mad about the brawl and says bring Jimmy on again anytime.

Then there’s this, from October 17, 1983 in MSG. You may have heard of it.

Intercontinental Title: Don Muraco vs. Jimmy Snuka

This is in a cage. Sound familiar? You can only win by escape, making this a REAL cage match. A quick slugout is won by Snuka but Muraco pops back up. Snuka chops away as the beating begins. Don tries for the door but Snuka will have none of that. Muraco manages to slingshot him into the cage and Jimmy is busted early. Snuka gets a knee up and climbs the cage, only to come back down and pound away on Muraco some more.

Don manages a slam and goes for the door but Jimmy makes a save, only to take a low blow. Snuka pops up and chops Don’s head open, followed by a middle rope headbutt. He stands Muraco up, and in a semi-famous ending, hits a flying headbutt which knocks Muraco into the door, knocking it open so that the unconscious Muraco can fall out to keep the title.

Rating: D+. The match was intense while it lasted, but the whole thing only runs about seven minutes. There’s nothing of note here at all other than the ending which is pretty creative. I don’t remember a shorter cage match off the top of my head, which is something I think a lot of people forget. I think people think this was a big and epic brawl but it’s really Snuka killing him and then the ending with a run time of 6:46. That’s not much.

Post match Jimmy snaps and throws Muraco back inside. He suplexes Muraco down and goes to the corner. He climbs to the top rope but then goes a step further to the top of the cage, and in the most famous scene in wrestling until Hogan vs. Andre, jumps off the top of the cage with the Superfly Splash, completely crushing Muraco. That still looks great today, and some credit needs to go to Muraco. He was starting to sit up when Jimmy hits him, but after the Splash Muraco is DEAD.

Mick Foley, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and Bubba Ray Dudley were in attendance that night and all have said this was what made them want to be a wrestler. I can easily see how that would be the case, as there was nothing like this beforehand. Snuka was flying through the air and crushed Muraco, which still looks incredible today. It’s stuff like that which you can only see in wrestling, which is what makes it great.

For some reason on the replays they keep stopping it right before the splash hits.

One of Snuka’s best known moments is being Hulk Hogan/Mr. T.’s second in the main event of the first Wrestlemania. That show was the followup to War to Settle the Score, so here’s Jimmy’s match from that show.

Jimmy Snuka vs. Bob Orton

This is a precursor to Heroes of Wrestling. Snuka is roided out of his mind here. This is an offshoot of Piper vs. Snuka. BIG pop for Snuka. Snuka sends him in and almost puts Orton to the floor with the force of it. Amazing how much more into this the crowd is with someone they actually, you know, CARE ABOUT.

We get a headlock from Jimmy as they’re feeling each other out here. Snuka does the double leap frog that he was kind of famous for as the speed is way up here. Back to the headlock but this time on the mat. We get one of my favorite stupid lines ever from Gorilla: “This is a main event in any arena in the world.” You know, except for here where it isn’t the main event.

Orton hits the floor for a bit of air. I guess there wasn’t enough air elsewhere in the ring. Atomic drop takes Jimmy down as I guess his head wasn’t as hard as his balls. Wait scratch those balls and replace it with a head and put balls where head was. Yeah that should do it. Orton misses a top rope splash which he landed on his feet in anyway. Jimmy unleashes the martial arts of grunting and Orton is reeling.

It’s one sided now with Jimmy fully in control as he hits a backbreaker and heads to the corner. A headbutt (no splash???) misses and Orton gets out of the way. Orton charges at Snuka in the corner and hits his arm on the post, hurting his….HOLY GOODNESS IT’S THE ARM INJURY!!! This is easily the most famous injury in wrestling history, not healing for over two years. According to Orton it was legit hurt for that long and they just made it a gimmick, but I’m not sure I buy that. A sunset flip ends Orton just a few seconds later.

Rating: C+. Much better than anything we’ve seen so far tonight but still nothing classic. Great bit of history here though with that injury which I never realized happened here. These two were joined at the hip forever and luckily the matches were at least pretty good more often than not. Decent match and a breath of air for the most part.

You can’t have Orton without Piper, so here’s a match from MSG in August of 1984. This is fallout from the famous coconut smash.

Roddy Piper vs. Jimmy Snuka

August 25, 1984 in the Garden again. Snuka starts off with chops and a headbutt. Piper is begging off as is the custom to start a grudge match like this in the 80s. Piper tries a headbutt of his own and when that doesn’t work he thumbs Snuka in the eyes. Jimmy grabs a sleeper and Piper is apparently trying to shimmy his way out of it. They go to the floor with the hold still on.

Piper, more in his element now, is able to break the hold on the floor. Jimmy sends him into the post and is busted open. Jimmy “goes bananas” according to Gorilla, which is a very poor choice of words given what started this feud. Snuka hammers away and hits the headbutt but the top rope cross body is countered into a hot shot and falls to the floor for a countout. Again, they keep the feud going with a non-conclusive ending. Old school booking 101.

Rating: B-. Solid brawl here as you could feel the hatred. This was a house show match though so the ending is understandable. The feud between these guys was great and I’m sure it would be blown off at another house show just like this one. I love old school booking. It’s so much different than today’s. Actually it’s not so different but house shows were the life blood of the company back then.

Where would we be without some Hogan? From May 15, 1985 in Boston.

Hulk Hogan/Jimmy Snuka vs. Don Muraco/Bob Orton

In Boston which means a hot crowd. Hogan is champion (duh) and Jimmy is probably the second most popular guy in the company. More Mania fallout stuff here. Big brawl to start and the good guys clear the ring. Snuka and Orton officially start and Bob gets his cast beaten on. Well that’s a very slow healing injury after all. They work on the arm for awhile with Hogan even coming in off the middle rope with a shot.

The arm hits the post and at this point it’s still a fresh injury, only having been broken for a month or so. Back to Snuka and the beating continues. The Human Banana comes back in and Orton can’t get anything going. Big atomic drop has Orton in trouble but he manages to trip Hogan to bring in Muraco. Gee Hogan went down quickly there. Clipped to Orton hitting a nice delayed vertical on Hogan.

Back to Muraco with some nice heel double teaming. They collide and there’s the hot tag to Snuka. The camera cuts to a shot of the crowd and a kid pops up right in front of the camera like in a horror movie. Fuji gets up on the apron for a distraction and Orton hits Snuka with the cast. Hogan takes a shot too and Snuka is busted. OH MAN is he cut. Hogan goes into the post on the floor and we’re clipped to more beating on Snuka. He gets a shot in though and it’s off to Hogan finally. Orton pops him with the cast almost immediately and it gets thrown out.

Rating: C+. I liked this one a lot and I’d have loved to see the full version of it. That and a decisive ending instead of the DQ but whatever. This was Hogan 101 back in the day: find some guy to tag with, find a pair of heels, and watch the guy get bigger than he was going to be able to get on his own. They’re trying that with Cena and Ryder at the moment, but it’s not working so well because Ryder looks like a helpless chick (remember Cena holding him?) in the whole thing.

Snuka would leave the WWF in August of 1985 and show up in the AWA in 1986. Here’s a tag match from later in that year against Snuka’s biggest rival: Colonel DeBeers.

Doug Somers/Colonel DeBeers/Larry Zbyszko vs. Curt Hennig/Greg Gagne/Jimmy Snuka

Larry has blonde hair here and it looks weird as all goodness. This is back in Vegas for no apparent reason and is billed as the main event. Gange is the son of the owner and completely and utterly crap. He was given a title made for him and he was literally one of only two people to hold it until the company folded. The heels have Sherri Martel with them here and she’s listed as Women’s Champion so this is after June 28.

DeBeers says something stunning as he says he won’t wrestle Snuka as he’s not 100% white. Holy goodness indeed. He’s apparently replacing some rookie named Scott Hall. I love seeing random names like that pop up. And before any moron says something, yes I know Hall wrestled for a long time in the AWA. Larry Hennig, Curt’s dad, is on commentary with the other two. Larry (Zbyszko is the only one I’ll refer to for the rest of this match) stalls like he always does and the announcers make fun of him for it. Yeah it’s the same show as earlier as the same seats are still empty.

Larry has mad heat on him and the crowd tells him that he sucks. The Colonel comes in and refuses to fight Snuka. He’s from South Africa where apartheid was still going on. He actually has curled mustache and twirls it. I like this guy. The twirler is beating on Snuka while he’s tied up as we return from a commercial. He’s doing the traditional cowardly heel thing as he’ll only fight when it’s easy.

Hennig is the top face in the company only after Bockwinkle and would soon win the title from him, holding it for about a year. This is more or less completely lacking any kind of flow as it’s a mess if I’ve ever seen one. Gagne is getting the heck beaten out of him and Hennig keeps getting tags that the referee doesn’t see. Hennig comes in and cleans house. You might even say he’s perfect at it. A missile dropkick on Somers gets the pin for the faces. DeBeers jumps Snuka and like an idiot goes for the head. If you’re going to be a racist, know your stereotypes.

Rating: D+. Again just kind of a mess but I’m assuming there’s a story here as there would be little reason to have this as the main event otherwise. Hennig was a god in the AWA at this time and this was no exception at all. He looked dominant and that was why this match happened.

Snuka would head back to the WWF in the late 80s and appear at the 1990 Survivor Series.

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.

Now out of big time wrestling, Snuka would hit the indies, including a startup company called Eastern Championship Wrestling. However, he would also perform once for WCW as an ECW representative/legend at Slamboree 1993.

Dick Murdoch/Don Muraco/Jimmy Snuka vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Blackjack Mulligan/Jim Brunzell

Snuka in WCW is just weird. There are only three Legends matches and they’re all in a row. See, the problem with shows like these is that they have to actually wrestle. The Jims star us off here. Brunzell controls and takes over to start before bringing in Mulligan (Barry Windham’s dad). Mulligan vs. Murdoch now and they look their age. Murdoch gets taken down and goes into the wrong corner which ends badly for him.

Larry actually gets on Schiavone for knowing too much history. Dang Bischoff messed with that guy’s head and style like nothing I’ve ever seen. Murdoch (former big shot in the KKK apparently) runs from Wahoo and it’s off to Muraco. Wahoo slams him a few times and Muraco runs off. It’s weird to see Snuka on the seemingly heel team.

Muraco chops McDaniel a lot as Wahoo is face in peril I guess. Ok never mind as it’s off to Brunzell again who hits that dropkick of his. MURDOCH HITS A FREAKING FLYING HEADSCISSORS!!! I need a minute here. The announcers pop big for that. Not very horrible either if you can believe that (playa). Sleeper doesn’t work that well for Brunzell as Muraco breaks it up and hits a powerslam for no cover.

Wahoo gets a tag but the referee misses it so we’re still not ready to bring someone new in. Heel miscommunication puts Snuka down. Murdoch goes up top and puts his knee in Brunzell’s back to drive him down for two. Back to Muraco who gets caught in a cross body for two. Snuka finally comes in and gets in an argument with Snuka. Everything breaks down into a big brawl and the match gets thrown out.

Rating: C. It’s hard to come down on these matches as they’re not supposed to be good or anything. None of the guys have been active for years other than maybe some work on the indy circuits (Muraco was in ECW sometime around this, as was Snuka) so it’s not like they’ve been in the spotlight recently. The idea is to let them get one last hurrah and that’s fine. Hard to complain if the match is even remotely passable.

Snuka was ECW’s biggest name star and would appear at The Night The Line Was Crossed, against an up and coming rookie.

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jimmy Snuka

Snuka is EVIL here and Dreamer is a pure rookie. I’ve seen this before somewhere. Dreamer is from Dreamland USA. Wow indeed. He’s the pretty boy in bright blue tights here and no one cares about him. Snuka is by far the biggest star in the company at this point. Joey promises a classic. That’s never a good sign. Dreamer is 22, my age, here. That’s hard to imagine as he’s always been old.

Lots of stalling to start as we just had to stretch this show out further didn’t we? Dreamer puts on the hat of a kid for no apparent reason. After about three minutes of stalling we lock up and go to a headlock. And now we stall some more. I thought WE WRESTLE IN THE NWA! The fans chant for Piper although I’m not sure why. Would it kill you guys to do something?

Snuka pops him with a pretty weak chair shot on the floor in by far the most interesting move of the match so far. Dreamer kicks out of the Superfly Splash and Joey apparently thinks he can walk on water too. Snuka hits two more of them and Dreamer is more or less dead. He’s bleeding from the mouth and Snuka finally pins him. He beats up some referees and other people afterwards and hits a fourth splash on Dreamer. Gordon comes out and gets beaten up too.

Rating: F+. This was about 80% stalling and then a bunch of splashes. It was like a weird kind of squash and by that I mean it wasn’t any good. The stalling is what hurts this as it’s nearly 8 minutes long and WAY too much of it was just them standing around and yelling at the crowd. Snuka wouldn’t mean anything in the long run anyway as he was only around for a few months after this while Dreamer became one of the biggest stars in the company.

Snuka would come back to the WWE on occasion as a legend, including being picked as Eugene’s partner at Taboo Tuesday 2005.

Rob Conway/Tyson Tomko vs. Eugene/Jimmy Snuka

Conway was a cocky guy with a legend hating gimmick which was dumb since Orton had just gotten done doing that. So is the mentally slow guy supposed to carry this team? Snuka looks out of shape here, nearly three and a half years before he was at Mania last year. Eugene and Tomko start us off and we’re already into the comedy portion as Eugene does the one hand up one hand down routine for the Test of Strength.

Conway wears his sunglasses during the match. Ok then. Eugene and Conway were more or less the most dominant tag team in the history of OVW, winning like 9 tag titles. Jimmy is going to be on the outside for the most part here due to a high level of old. There’s the hot tag to him anyway and Snuka just looks confused. Then again he looked that way in his prime.

The faces play ping pong with Conway using headbutts. Eugene hits a Rock Bottom and the splash ends it after about 15 seconds of setting up. Tomko gets back from writing his novel or whatever he spent the last few minutes doing and Kamala and Duggan make the save. At least they kept it short.

Rating: D. This was a bad match but what did you expect? We knew Snuka would win with the splash but seriously, was Tomko the best they had available as a partner? He had nothing to do with this feud or angle or anything like that. This was a glorified handicap match that just wasn’t interesting at all. Like I said though, at least it was short.

Same concept, two years later at Vengenace 2007.

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Domino vs. ???/???

It’s an open challenge here so the challengers are unknown. Deuce says this place is full of old people. Domino doesn’t like them either. This team was either great or completely idiotic. In short, they’re Fonzie from Happy Days. Cherry, their manager, in short is hot. Deuce is more commonly known as Sim Snuka or the guy that kept Taker from breaking his neck at Mania 25. The challengers are Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka. Allow me to quote the 25th letter of the alphabet: WHY???????????/

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Domino vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Jimmy Snuka

Remember that Snuka is Deuce’s father. JBL says if the champions lose then he’s calling Ron Simmons up and reforming the APA. JBL suggests their name could be the Coffin Dodgers. Oh that’s funny. Sarge looks good here and we get a jab at the Ultimate Warrior. They beat the tar out of Domino here as you would expect them to. Again though, this is on PPV in 2007. There’s the Cobra Clutch which is his signature finisher, which always amused me.

The one time he used a different finisher, he won the WWF Title. So naturally he used the old one and never did anything again. This has been dominance so far. Deuce finally comes in and this is dragging badly. Snuka beating up his son is just kind of surreal. I don’t know if I’d want to be in that position or not. Snuka hits a top rope cross body but Deuce rolls through for the pin. How annoying do you think he’s going to be with that at Thanksgiving? He pinned his HOF dad on PPV. How cool would it be to be able to say that? Post match there’s a beatdown and Martel and Garea jump the railing for the save.

Rating: D-. The match was horrible obviously, but the point here was to have the legends get a chance out there again. That doesn’t make up for it though. This is just not something I want to see on a PPV show. On TV is one thing I guess, but no way this should be on PPV. Age has caught up with the Superfly and it was sad to see.

Despite being around for such a long time, Snuka wasn’t the kind of guy that won titles. That being said, he’s a great example of a guy getting over and staying over because of a style and one big move. The Superfly Splash is just cool all around and the image of him diving onto Muraco doesn’t stop being cool no matter what. Snuka is an innovative guy and one of the most entertaining guys of his era.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: March 31, 2014
Location: Verizon Center, Washington D.C.
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Jerry Lawler

It’s the final Raw before Wrestlemania so I wouldn’t expect the most exciting shot tonight. Everything is set up for Sunday and all there is left to do is give us the hard sell. There’s a chance to have something else change before we get there but I can’t imagine it would be anything big. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Undertaker to open the show. As he makes his entrance to the ring, we see a clip from the end of last week’s show. He looks at the sign and says twenty one men have stood up and twenty one men have been sat down. At the showcase of the immortals, he will go further than anyone else and that is why the Streak stays alive. Brock is probably thinking how he’s going to break the Streak, but what he should be thinking is what happens when Undertaker takes him out into the deep water.

What is Brock going to do when his feet can’t hit the bottom? Will he try and take Undertaker down with him, or will he try to swim back to shore? Of course there are some people that think the Streak will end one day. However, there are three things that can’t be beaten: Death, taxes, and the Streak. He goes to say the catchphrase but here are Lesnar and Heyman to interrupt.

Paul says this isn’t a match Brock has to win, but rather a match Undertaker can’t lose. All it takes is one F5 and then three seconds later it’s all over. This Sunday is the biggest Wrestlemania moment since Hulk Hogan defeated Andre the Giant, and that’s a spoiler. Lesnar turns to leave but looks back and walks down to the ring. Undertaker gets ready to go so Brock stops to point at the sign. He circles the ring and gets in after a Heyman distraction. Undertaker gets in some shots but gets caught in the F5, laying Undertaker out for the first time in the feud.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Big E.

Battle royal hype time. Del Rio gets run over for an early two and a fall away slam gets the same. Big E. avoids a charge into the post and hurts his shoulder, allowing Del Rio to crush Big E.’s hand into the steps. Back from a break with Big E. suplexing Del Rio down and trying to get some feeling back into his shoulder.

Alberto grabs the armbreaker over the ropes but Big E. catches him coming off the top to take over. A belly to belly looks to set up the Big Ending but Del Rio escapes into the Backstabber for two. The armbreaker is countered into a powerslam for two but now the armbreaker goes on. Big E. tries to power out but gets put in the full hold.

He rolls up again and powers Del Rio up into a modified powerbomb for two as Del Rio grabs the rope. Big E. misses another charge and gets hung up in the ropes, allowing Alberto to go up for a HUGE double stomp to the chest, drawing a big gasp from the crowd. The superkick is good for the pin at 10:29 as Del Rio continues to be Big E.’s Kryptonite.

Rating: C+. This was by far the best match these two have ever had and a lot of it is because they had the time to work on things. That being said, can we please have them fight for the title now? Del Rio has pinned Big E. clean at least twice in a row now, but there’s never any mention of him wanting the title. Either hav ehim go after the belt or stop having them fight.

We look back at the Wyatts knocking out Cena and putting him in the mask last week.

Bray says the world craves change. However they turn a blind eye to the landfills because you can’t just whisper in people’s ears anymore and expect them to listen. He gets right up in the camera and asks if he has their attention now. She told him that he would be the one to change diamonds into dust and change the world. They’re going to cry for Cena but in time they’ll forget him when Cena is left with nothing. Bray says he’s the monster and sings about having the whole world in his hands.

We get a Total Divas recap, which I can’t believe has taken this long.

Natalya vs. Summer Rae

This is a result of a fight on Total Divas. Vickie is on commentary and tells us that the Divas match on Sunday is going to be one fall with all fourteen girls in there at the same time. They’re not even trying to keep things calm. Natalya takes Summer down and the dancing girl screams a lot. She comes back with a bad looking clothesline and puts on a chinlock for a few moments.

Nattie fights back with a low dropkick and snap suplex. Summer slaps her in the face so Natalya returns the favor. Rae charges at her but gets taken down, only to kick out of the Sharpshooter. She comes back with a quick kick to the head and gets the pin on Natalya out of nowhere at 2:23.

Here’s the Authority for the end of the YES Movement. Stephanie says tonight is the chance for everyone to say goodbye before HHH destroys Daniel Bryan on Sunday. HHH talks about how people are looking at Bryan as the flavor of the month. He and Stephanie demonstrate Fandangoing before saying the fans are the reason nothing came from that. Stephanie starts a YES chant and says anyone can get that going.

Daniel Bryan won’t be here tonight because it’s best for business. HHH says people don’t understand business, such as when they say he has power because he married well. While it’s true he married spectacularly, the reason he has what he has is because of his dominance in the ring. It didn’t matter what guy you jumped on as the savior, because HHH was going to take them down.

This takes us to a video, narrated by Stephanie, of various people he’s taken down over the years, such as Booker T, Scott Steiner, RVD, Jeff Hardy, Goldberg, Mick Foley, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. All of them rose up for a bit but now all that’s left is the Game. At Wrestlemania, Daniel Bryan will be another sacrificial lamb and the fans will lose another chosen one, because there is only one HHH. This was AMAZING and sold the idea perfectly.

Back live and HHH says they were all just players, but he’s the Game now more than ever. On Sunday, he’ll destroy Daniel Bryan and then walk out as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. They go to leave but here’s Batista to interrupt. Batista digs the video, but noticed he wasn’t in it because HHH has never beaten him. HHH makes fun of Batista’s Georgetown (local college basketball team) jersey but Batista says HHH shouldn’t be worried about a title match he’s not even in yet. HHH says go get ready for your match and Batista says that’s a good idea, which makes sense because Stephanie is the brawn of this family.

Orton comes out and says he wants a front row seat if Stephanie is about to slap him again. Orton says he respects the Authority and loves the idea of a triple threat, but asks HHH to think again about being in the title match. HHH tells Orton that no amount of sucking up is going to get him out of this because his title reign is coming to an end very soon. That is, unless Orton can become the Viper again. HHH makes the main event No DQ to try and make Orton all the more evil.

Usos/Los Matadores vs. Real Americans/Ryback/Curtis Axel

Ryback shoves Jimmy into the corner to start but Jimmy comes back with kicks in the chest. The Usos hit a double kick to the ribs, only to have Ryback run Jey over and make the tag off to Axel. Jey catapults Curtis into a forearm from Fernando and Diego follows in with a slingshot splash. Axel gets double teamed by both teams until it’s back to Jey for a wristlock.

Off to Cesaro for some hard forearms before Swagger comes in to stomp away. Jey fights back with right hands and clotheslines before sending Ryback out to the floor. Fernando comes in and tags out to Jimmy before anything happens. Jimmy and Fernando dive over the top to take out the Real Americans, setting up Jey with a top rope cross body for two on Swagger.

Jack sends him to the floor and knocks him off the apron for a crash. Back from a break with Cesaro dropkicking Jey down for two and getting the same off a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Swagger comes in and literally throws Cesaro into the corner onto Jey. Ryback comes in and puts on a chinlock until Jey fights up and hits a bulldog. The hot tag brings in Jimmy to clean house and speed things way up.

A release Samoan drop puts Axel down and the running Umaga attack in the corner gets two. Ryback gets superkicked to the floor and Axel gets two off a rollup. Jack makes a blind tag and kicks Jimmy in the face for two with Diego making the save. Cesaro loads up the Swing but Fernando breaks it up to a lot of booing. Back inside and the Vader Bomb is countered but Jimmy avoids the Patriot Lock and kicks Swagger in the face. Diego dives off the top but lands in the Patriot Lock but doesn’t tap. Swagger goes after Jey but the Matadores switch, allowing Fernando to roll Jack up for the pin at 13:55.

Rating: C. It’s not a bad match but the division just isn’t all that interesting. Los Matadores being employed still makes my head shake, especially when El Torito isn’t involved. The ending with the Twin Magic wasn’t a terrible idea and it’s nice to see them add another team that could win the titles on Sunday.

Cody Rhodes/Goldust vs. Fandango/Damien Sandow

Fandango takes Cody into the corner before it’s off to Sandow to stomp away, knocking Rhodes out to the floor. We hit a chinlock on Cody before a drop toehold breaks up a hot tag attempt. Cody kicks Damien away and tags Goldust anyway to clean house. Goldust takes both heels down with the top rope cross body before getting two on Sandow. Cody dives off the top to take down Fandango, allowing Goldust to hit the Final Cut for the pin on Damien at 4:08.

Rating: D+. There wasn’t much to see here as it was nothing more than a way to get people on the show before the Wrestlemania match on Sunday. That’s something you often get on the go home shows, which doesn’t exactly make for good TV but it’s something you have to do to avoid injuries.

We recap Shield vs. Kane/Outlaws.

Shield says they almost feel bad for Kane. One of them will be facing Kane tonight, decided by a WWE App vote. Rollins says the geriatric Outlaws will be joining Kane on Sunday and be shown why the fist is the new symbol of excellence. Ambrose promises to show the old guys a new things about attitude. Reigns says Believe in the Shield.

R-Truth vs. Bray Wyatt

Bray runs him over to start and laughs a lot, only to run into a leg lariat. Wyatt comes right back with the hard running cross body before hammering away with right hands and headbutts. We hit a quick camel clutch for a bit before a belly to back suplex into a facebuster puts Truth down again. Sister Abigail is enough for the pin at 4:35.

Rating: D. It’s just a long squash. There really isn’t much else to say about this match. However, Bray continues to be totally dominant and that’s what you need coming into the biggest match of his career. Sunday could be a huge moment for Bray if it’s done right, which doesn’t mean he needs to win.

Xavier Woods gets beaten down post match. The Wyatts pose but there’s another guy in coveralls and a sheep mask. Bray looks up at him and it’s John Cena to an ERUPTION. Rowan takes an AA but Bray escapes to fight on Sunday. That’s one of the loudest pops for Cena that I’ve heard in months. Bray gives Cena a bizarre look from the ramp.

We look back at Vickie making the Divas Title match.

AJ Lee vs. Naomi

Lumberjill match with the other challengers on the floor and Vickie on the stage. AJ is immediately sent to the floor and thrown back in but Naomi doesn’t get the same treatment. Now the champion is sent outside again and the other girls throw her right back in. Back in and AJ fires off kicks to the ribs before it’s off to a guillotine check.

A swinging neckbreaker gets two on Naomi but she comes back with a kick to the head. AJ is sent to the floor again but Tamina tries to protect her. That’s fine with them though as Tamina gets beaten down as well. The Divas throw AJ back inside after one heck of a beating, allowing Naomi to hit the Rear View for the easy pin at 4:04.

Rating: D. Build for the PPV, I don’t know why we’ve got the AJ vs. Vickie feud after months of AJ getting pinned but that’s the WWE for you. I have a bad feeling AJ leaves with the title, but I’m hoping Paige shows up the next night on Raw to take the title. It wasn’t really much of a match anyway but the girls looked good on the floor.

A nervous John Cena talks about Bray Wyatt spreading his propaganda. Cena has just shown Bray what happens when he gets backed into a corner. On Sunday John Cena will be a monster because being a monster for a day secures a legacy for a lifetime. Yes he’s afraid but the moment you realize he has the ability to face it, everything is worth it. Cena is bringing the change to the eater of worlds on Sunday and tells us all to be watching on Sunday.

The expert panel talks about Bray vs. Cena.

We look back at the opening segment.

Roman Reigns wins the poll with 80% of the vote.

Roman Reigns vs. Kane

Kane gets pounded down in the corner but raises a boot to stop a charging Reigns. A hard clothesline sets up the chokeslam but Reigns powers out of it. Some right hands stagger Kane and there’s a BIG running clothesline to drop Kane. Kane gets knocked into the ropes and the running boot to the side of the heads knocks him back inside. He loads up the Superman Punch but here come the Outlaws. Ambrose and Rollins cut them off though, allowing Reigns to nail the Superman Punch. The other Shield members get inside to surround Kane and the beating is on for the DQ at 3:09.

Rating: D+. This was the buildup match for the six man which still isn’t all that interesting. I see the Outlaws coming to the ring and the idea of them facing Rollins and Ambrose at Wrestlemania just doesn’t work for me at all. They look like a team you bring in on Raw for a special moment to set up a PPV match against a big team. But hey, the Outlaws want to have the match and that’s what matters.

It’s time for Piper’s Pit with a surprise guest. Piper says it’s Wrestlemania season and is thrilled that Wrestlemania I was 29 years ago today. He talks about how important Andre the Giant was to the first Wrestlemania and says the winner of the battle royal will get their Wrestlemania moment. Piper is about to talk about his favorite for the match but here’s Miz to interrupt.

Miz brags about actually winning in the main event of Wrestlemania, meaning the other 29 superstars don’t compare to him at all, just like the Pit doesn’t compare to MizTV. This brings out Sheamus to make Piper even angrier. Sheamus says Miz isn’t fit to hold Roddy’s kilt before talking about winning the battle royal. Cue Titus as Piper is getting hilarious with his ranting over the interruptions. He spells out his name and barks in Piper’s face.

Here’s Ziggler, drawing out a “REALLY??? REALLY??? I’M TALKING HERE!!!” from Piper. Roddy looks at all of them and has something to say to each ot them. Piper pokes Miz in the eye and throws him to Sheamus as a fight breaks out. A bunch of other guys in the battle royal hit the ring for a ten to twelve man fight.

Rey Mysterio comes out with music to kick Dolph in the head. Sin Cara takes a 619 and Brogue Kick until Big Show comes out to really clean the ring. Rey and Big Show are the only ones left standing and Rey begs off, only to hit a 619 to the ribs. A top rope seated senton is just dumb though and Rey is thrown to the floor in a big pile. Roddy raises Big Show’s hand to end the segment.

Batista vs. Randy Orton

No DQ and non-title. Batista is the hometown boy and gets a decent reaction from the crowd. Before the match here are HHH and Stephanie coming down to do commentary. Orton takes him down to the floor to start and hammers away but gets sent into the post. Back in and Randy stomps away before sending Batista out to the floor and into the barricade.

Batista’s arm is rammed into the announce table a lot and a belly to back suplex onto the barricade has him in even more trouble. Randy nails him in the back with a chair before they head back inside. Batista knocks Orton right back to the floor and slams him into the announce table a few times. HHH says show him the Animal so Batista rams Orton spine first into the apron. He gets a chair of his own but Randy pulls on a kendo stick to blast Batista.

Back in again and the spinebuster puts Orton down but the Batista Bomb is countered into the backbreaker. There’s the Elevated DDT but Daniel Bryan jumps over the announce table and jumps HHH. Orton goes outside to take out Bryan but gets taken down as well. Randy gets back up and sends Bryan into the steps as Stephanie checks on her “baby”. Batista nails Orton with the spear but Bryan kicks him in the head and hits the knee. FLYING GOAT takes HHH down as everything is going nuts. A bunch of kendo stick shots knock HHH into the ring before Bryan dropkicks Orton off the apron. The match is thrown out at about 8:00.

Rating: C+. This was a nice brawl but it was all about the moment of course. Bryan had to show up here and tonight was his night to end the show. Orton vs. Batista actually wasn’t bad but thank goodness they didn’t do it as the main event of Wrestlemania. It was good but it wasn’t THAT good.

A huge YES chant erupts as HHH shouts that Bryan is done to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This is a show where you have to take something big into account. This was all about getting ready for Sunday and the wrestling took a huge backseat to the building process. The matches were pretty lame, but the matches all got TV time and I’m more excited for Wrestlemania than I have been in years.

Results

Alberto Del Rio b. Big E. – Superkick

Summer Rae b. Natalya – Kick to the faceless

Los Matadores/Usos b. Real Americans/Curtis Axel/Ryback – Rollup to Swagger

Cody Rhodes/Goldust b. Damien Sandow/Fandango – Final Cut to Sandow

Bray Wyatt b. R-Truth – Sister Abigail

Naomi b. AJ Lee – Pin after the lumberjills beat up AJ on the floor

Kane b. Roman Reigns via DQ when Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins interfered

Randy Orton vs. Batista went to a no contest

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Clash of the Champions at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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Wrestlemania XII
Date: March 31, 1996
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 18,853
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon

This is all about Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart. The main event is an hour long Iron Man Match with Bret defending against the absolutely on fire Shawn Michaels. Since returning last May, Shawn has hit a stride where he is without a doubt the best in the world. There’s almost nothing else on the entire card other than Undertaker vs. Diesel as the Streak finally has a big match included. Let’s get to it.

The opening video talks about the dream of the champion (to stay on top) and the challenger (to rise to the top of the mountain). They make the match feel like a very big deal which is the right idea. Good stuff.

Camp Cornette vs. Yokozuna/Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson

Camp Cornette is Vader/Owen Hart/British Bulldog and if they lose, Yoko gets five minutes alone with Cornette. Of all the music for the faces to come out to, they pick Yoko’s? The monsters brawl to start and Yoko takes him down with a clothesline. Another one sends Vader to the floor and Ahmed hits a big dive over the top to take Vader down again. Back in and they slug it out some more before it’s off to Owen. Yoko is so fat here it’s amazing that he can move.

After Owen gets beaten up a bit it’s back to Vader for more hard shots to the head. Vader pounds him down to the mat but Yoko is able to get over to Ahmed for a not hot tag. Johnston starts cleaning house on everyone until Vader gets in a shot from behind to take him down. A jumping senton misses Ahmed though and a flying clothesline puts Vader down.

We settle down to Johnsn vs. Bulldog with Ahmed loading up the Pearl River Plunge (Tiger Bomb), only to have Hart hit a missile dropkick to break it up. Owen drags him back to the corner and here’s more Vader. A splash crushes Johnson but there’s still no cover. Back to Owen who is clotheslined down almost immediately and there’s the real hot tag to Jake. Oh and Mr. Fuji is in the face corner with an American flag.

Owen avoids the DDT and Jake charges into a knee in the corner. Bulldog puts on the front facelock so the fans chant USA. At least most of the face team is made in America this time. Back to Vader for the hard clothesline and a slam, followed by a top rope elbow from Owen. That gets two so Owen cranks back on both of Jake’s arms for a bit. Bulldog comes in but the powerslam only gets two as well. It was a clean kickout too which is pretty odd to see.

Vader comes in for a splash but THAT only gets two as well. The fans don’t seem all that interested in this though. Bulldog tries a splash of his own but Roberts rolls away to buy himself some time. The other hot tag brings in Yoko to face Vader with the latter being punched down in the corner. Yoko cleans house on all three villains and crushes Bulldog with a belly to belly. The DDT hits Owen but Jake has to take out an interfering Cornette. Jake loads up the DDT on Cornette but Vader runs him over and the Vader Bomb is finally enough to pin Roberts.

Rating: C. Nice tag match here but the crowd doesn’t seem interested in the show so far. Hopefully they’re just saving it up for the main event which is the only match that matters on the entire show. Johnson looked good and would get pushed to the Intercontinental Title soon after this. The other guys all looked like themselves.

We recap Piper vs. Goldust which was supposed to be Razor vs. Goldust but Razor got in trouble for drugs. The idea is that Goldust is in lust with Piper but the REAL MAN Piper will have none of this gay stuff. The result is a Hollywood Backlot Brawl which is exactly what it sounds like: stupid.

Goldust vs. Roddy Piper

This was taped earlier in the day. Goldust shows up in a gold Cadillac while Piper has a ball bat in hands. Naturally he puts that down and sprays the car with a fire hose. When the power of WATER doesn’t stop a large car, Roddy breaks through the windows with the bat. Piper beats up Goldust with the bat and some stiff looking shots with fists and various metal objects.

Goldust gets sprayed with the hose and rammed into the hood of the car. There’s a knee drop from Piper which mainly hits car followed by a LOUD punch. A low blow stops Piper so Goldie gets in the car and runs over a stuntman in a Piper costume. Goldust drives away so Piper steals a white Ford Bronco and we get a car chase which we’ll return to later. I’ll save the rating for the end of part two later on.

Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega

Austin debuted late last year and is the Million Dollar Champion at this point. Savio was Austin’s first feud in the WWF, which says a lot about how far Stone Cold would jump up the card in just a year. Savio says he’s ready. Vega pounds away to start and they brawl to the floor. Back in and Austin gets in a shot to the face before sending Savio’s shoulder into the post. This is back when Austin could MOVE as he didn’t have a bad neck so the offense is very different. He’s also ripped with well defined abs.

Austin cranks on the arm but Savio backflips out and hits a superkick for two. Roddy calls in and says he’s not letting it end this way. Savio goes shoulder first into the post again and we lose Piper. What a shame. We hit the armbar as Austin is in full control. There’s a hammerlock slam as Piper is back on the phone and talking about beating Goldust up in Tijuana. Vega comes back with a fast cross body for two but Austin comes back with the Thesz Press which doesn’t mean anything for him yet.

We go split screen to show “Piper” chasing Goldust in the Cadillac. This is from the air because clearly a helicopter is available in 10 minutes’ notice. This is supposed to be a parody of the O.J. Simpson car chase, which was only two years earlier. Austin goes up top (I told you he was different) but jumps into a boot. There’s a clothesline to put Austin down but a spinwheel kick hits the referee by mistake. DiBiase slides in the Million Dollar Belt and Vega is KO’d. Another shot to the back of the head and a chinlock of all things are enough for Austin to get the win.

Rating: C+. Bad Piper references aside, this was pretty solid stuff. Austin was AWESOME back in the day before he had to basically invent the brawling style that he made famous. Vega wasn’t much out there, but at least he was good enough to make Austin look solid. This was a fun match, but again no one cared because the main event and one other match are all that matter.

More car chase stuff. Vince: “This footage looks awfully familiar.”

We recap the Undertaker’s mind games with Diesel lately that set up the other big match tonight. Diesel says Undertaker is a big obstacle but he doesn’t sweat the big things.

More car chase stuff.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Ultimate Warrior

HHH debuts Sable as his latest good looking valet. This is Warrior’s latest return and the story was he might weigh 400lbs and be bald. Warrior of course is fine and the fans go nuts for him. Warrior’s entrance is far longer than the match. HHH jumps Warrior before he takes his coat off and and actually hits the Pedigree. That goes nowhere though as Warrior is on his feet at the same time HHH is. Clotheslines, shoulder blocks, press slam and splash mean we’re done. The match didn’t even last two minutes.

We go to the back and meet the debuting Marc Mero. He talks about being glad to be here when HHH comes up (with Mero’s real life wife Sable) and a brawl erupts.

Piper is on his way back to the arena.

Diesel vs. Undetaker

So Diesel cost Undertaker a title match so Undertaker pulled Diesel through the ring during a cage match for the title against Bret. Then Taker did his usual mind games against Diesel, setting up this battle of the titans. Diesel jumps him to start and the brawl is on fast. Taker clotheslines him down but misses an elbow drop. They fight to the floor with Diesel going face first into the steps. This is fast paced stuff so far.

Back in and Diesel avoids Old School, only to get stunned on the top rope. We head back to the floor where Undertaker’s chair shot hits the post instead of Diesel. Diesel rams him back first into the post and then does it again for good measure. Back in again and Diesel slows things up by punching Taker in the face a few times. Snake Eyes (actually called that by Vince) hits and there’s the running crotch attack in 619 position to Undertaker.

The Dead Man starts slugging back and they both hit big boots to put each other down. Taker sits up first but Diesel hits him in the back to get control again. Off to the bear hug that you knew was coming sooner or later. Taker finally fights out of it and things slow down again. Notice that the fans are into this one, unlike anything in the first hour of the show. Taker hits a clothesline off the top for a somewhat delayed two count.

Out of nowhere Diesel hits the Jackknife but he can’t follow up. Actually he can but he would rather stand around and brag for awhile. Taker sits up so there’s another Jackknife for good measure. Diesel takes forever to cover though and Taker grabs him by the throat. They get to their feet and it looks to be chokeslam time, only for Diesel to break it up with a belly to back suplex. Taker sits up again and there’s the running clothesline. A pretty bad chokeslam puts Diesel down and the Tombstone makes Undertaker 5-0.

Rating: B-. For what it was, this was pretty solid stuff. Undertaker looked better than he usually does and it was really in doubt if he could hang with someone that had just come off a year long world title reign. This was probably the turning point for the Dead Man from monster of the week slayer to big time threat to anyone. He would soon be tested by a debuting Mankind, which would change his career forever.

Goldie and Piper get back to the arena so let’s get this over with. Goldust is back first and is exhausted from the driving. He and Piper stumble into the arena so I guess the “match” has been going on for an hour now.

Roddy Piper vs. Goldust

Note that the Hollywood Backlot Brawl is now a wrestling match in a ring in Anaheim. There’s no referee or anything so they’re just going to fight until it ends. Goldust pounds away and hits some shots to Piper’s leg followed by a low blow. There goes Piper’s shirt as you would expect it to. Goldust mounds him and starts pounding away but an attempt at kissing Piper makes the Hot Scot fire back.

Goldie goes up top but gets crotched down again. From his seat on the top rope though, he grabs Piper and kisses him, sending Piper into a frenzy. The fight is on and Piper, the apparent homophobe, grabs Goldust by the crotch. Goldust gets his own clothes ripped off and Piper kisses him. Well sure why not. Anyway Goldust is wearing either women’s lingerie or some kind of S&M stuff so he bails, giving this to Piper.

Rating: N/A. This wasn’t wrestling so no rating, but I think you can figure out what I thought of it. Goldust, who was Intercontinental Champion at this point, would feud with various midcarders before getting beaten up by Ahmed Johnson for awhile. Piper would be gone like the next day and in WCW in six months.

We recap Michaels vs. Hart which is about two different paths to get to the top of the world. The question is about who is the best, so we’re going to find out in the hour long Iron Man Match.

Shawn says this is about getting to the top of the mountain.

Bret says everything has come to this point and he wants to wake up the next day with the belt.

Gorilla Monsoon is officially in charge again, taking over from Piper.

WWF World Title: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

In the famous opening, Shawn’s manager/trainer Jose Lothario comes to the ring alone. He gets on the bottom rope and points to the rafters where a spotlight shines. It’s Shawn, dancing atop the rafters and ziplining down into the crowd. The shot from behind him with the flashbulbs going off was one of the most shown visuals in company history for a long time. Bret just walks to the ring because he’s a bit more laid back. Of course this is an Iron Man Match lasting one hour, most falls in that amount of time wins.

Earl Hebner is the referee because there’s no one else that it could be. He reads the full rules to both guys which is pretty cool to hear actually. Vince says that whoever wins the first decision will win the match. It likely helps that he picked the winner. Feeling out process to start with both guys being tentative to get into anything of note. Granted they’re also likely conserving energy.

Shawn easily escapes a pair of headlocks and they trade some more technical stuff. First bit of psychology: Bret blocks a third try at the same headlock counter that Shawn used both times earlier. We head to the mat with the champion in control via a headlock. Shawn fights up and we get a nice technical sequence resulting in Bret being right back in control with a headlock. Off to a front facelock as the announcers debate which man is stronger. That’s a good question actually.

Back to the headlock which is smart this early in a match like this. Shawn gets up again and fires off some armdrags before hooking an armbar. Freddie Blassie and Stu Hart are in the front row. They run the ropes a few times until Bret takes it back to the mat, only to be caught in a kind of abdominal stretch on the mat. They go into the corner and Shawn fires off some right hands, only to be sent into the other corner. Shawn is cool with that as he sends Bret to the floor with a headscissors. Fifty minutes left.

Back in and Shawn puts on an armbar but Bret throws him over the top. It’s Shawn though so he skins the cat and hooks the armbar again to put Bret down. Bret comes back with a shot to the ribs and a headbutt to the abdomen to take over. Off to a chinlock for a bit but Michaels escapes with a jawbreaker. There’s a Fujiwara Armbar on the champ but Bret nips up and catches Shawn in a kind of spinebuster.

The Sharpshooter doesn’t work though so he clotheslines Shawn to the floor. The fans aren’t sure what to think of that. Bret heads to the floor and gets sent into the post which makes him stagger into the timekeeper. We’ve got 45 minutes left as Shawn misses Sweet Chin Music on Bret, hitting the timekeeper by mistake and knocking him out cold. Back in and Bret hooks another chinlock as the timekeeper gets stretchered out.

As the chinlock goes on for almost three minutes we see the problem with this match: it doesn’t need to be an Iron Man Match. Yeah it’s kind of cool that it did went an hour but it would have been fine as a regular match that went like 45 minutes or something like that. The drama would have been better too and we wouldn’t have long rest holds like this. I can’t blame the wrestlers for resting like that as it’s not fair to ask them to go nuts for an hour, but it doesn’t make for the most interesting TV in the world.

Shawn finally gets up but can’t get an O’Connor Roll. Instead he hits a dropkick and grabs another armbar to take Bret down. Shawn cranks on the arm even harder with 40 minutes to go. Now we hit the hammerlock as the crowd is pretty silent. Back up and Shawn sends Bret’s shoulder into the post to give him the biggest advantage yet. There’s a shoulderbreaker to the champion followed by a double ax from the middle rope to the shoulder.

Bret starts firing off punches but Shawn comes back with a DDT on the arm. There’s a cross armbreaker but Shawn breaks it after one pull. Now it goes on full but Bret fights up and rakes his boot across Shawn’s face to break the hold. That’s rather heelish no? Back to the armbar but Hart counters into a kind of middle rope hot shot. Shawn fights back but misses a Stinger Splash in the corner, giving Bret his first advantage in a long time.

The bulldog puts Shawn down so Bret goes up top. That’s an odd sight for him and Shawn tries to slam him down, only to get pulled down to the mat by his hair. Bret hit the referee on the way down and we’re at halftime. Shawn comes back with a powerslam for two but a backdrop attempt is countered into a piledriver which gets two for the champion. Bret goes up again but gets slammed down.

Michaels starts speeding things up with a standing hurricanrana but Bret hangs onto the ropes to avoid the superkick. A backbreaker gets two for Shawn but Hart bails to the floor to avoid the kick again. Instead Shawn goes up and hits a HUGE dive to the floor to take the champ down. Back in and Shawn skins the cat, only to get caught in a small package for two. A Perfectplex gets two for Shawn and he hooks a sleeper. Hart gets his arm up on the second drop so Shawn rams him into the corner again.

Michaels charges at Bret but gets backdropped up and over the post and out to the floor in a great looking crash. Bret goes out to get him though which isn’t the brightest idea in the world. Back in and Bret works over Shawn’s injured back before dropping a leg for no cover. We’ve got twenty minutes left and Bret stomps away on the back. Shawn is flipped upside down in the corner and there’s a belly to back superplex for a close two.

We hit the camel clutch for a few minutes before Shawn fights up again. Hart tries a superplex but has to settle for punching a jumping Shawn in the ribs. Michaels gets whipped into the corner and it’s a Flair Flip to the floor where Shawn accidentally kicks Jose in the head. Out to the floor and Bret whips Shawn into the steps, knocking Jose down again. We head back inside with fifteen minutes to go.

A belly to belly suplex gets two for Bret so it’s time for a slugout. An O’Connor roll doesn’t work for Shawn as Bret kicks him out to the floor on the kickout. A suicide dive takes Shawn down again and we’ve got twelve minutes left. Back in again and Bret hits a German suplex for two. They slug it out but Shawn can’t hang with Bret at this point. Hart is too exhausted to follow up though so it’s back to the camel clutch.

Ten minutes to go now and the camel clutch eats up about two of that. It’s off to a regular chinlock with eight minutes to go and Shawn fights up. They clothesline each other down and more time is being burned up. A superplex puts Shawn down again but he STILL manages to block the Sharpshooter. Hart settles for a half crab as the punishment on the back continues. Shawn makes a rope but gets taken down by a backbreaker with five minutes to go.

Bret loads up his middle rope elbow but jumps into a boot to put both guys down again. A dropkick puts Bret in the corner as Shawn gets his nineteenth win according to Shawn. Four minutes to go now. There’s the flying forearm and the nip up (the camera misses it) as Shawn picks up the speed. A jumping back elbow puts Hart down and a top rope spinning ax handle gets two. The top rope elbow hits with two and a half minutes left. A good looking gutwrench powerbomb gets no cover with two minutes to go.

Shawn busts out a moonsault press for two as Bret is trying to hang on. Ninety seconds left and Shawn hits a middle rope rana for two more. Shawn slams him down and goes up top but he can’t follow up with a minute left. Shawn tries another rana but jumps into the Sharpshooter with thirty three seconds left in the match. The place is going NUTS but Shawn amazingly holds out until the time limit expires.

BUT WAIT!

As Bret leaves, Gorilla Monsoon orders the match to continue under sudden death rules. As Bret puts it: why? This was never agreed to and Bret is indeed getting screwed here. The bell rings and Bret is TICKED. He goes after Shawn’s back and hits a big backdrop. Bret whips Shawn into the corner, and in one of two moments that made me jump to my feet when I was watching it live, Shawn jumps over Bret out of the corner and hits Sweet Chin Music to put both guys down. Michaels gets up, tunes up the band, and kicks Bret’s head off for the pin and his first world title.

Rating: B. After an hour and five minutes of this match, there’s one word that can sum it up: LONG. That’s the problem here: it did not need to be an hour long and would have been much better suited as a regular one on one match. Either that or have a few falls in between, as having it be one very long glorified one on one match makes the stipulation seem pretty lame. The psychology is good though and it’s not a bad match by any means. It just could have had over 20 minutes cut out and you could have had the same match, and that’s not a good sign. Oh and what happened to Bret’s shoulder injury?

Bret, ever the mature one, storms off like a baby with the ability to walk as Shawn is awarded the title. Shawn has a very touching moment when he realizes he finally won the title and is very somber. Then he turns into Shawn and goes nuts celebrating which he deserves the right to do.

Overall Rating: C+. The show isn’t terrible but the main problem is that it’s almost a one match show. Now to be fair there’s a five match card (not counting the brawl) and two of the matches are quite good, but the problem is that this was basically a four man show. It’s certainly not terrible, but it feels incomplete due to one match being about half the show. Bret vs. Shawn is worth seeing, but make sure you have a remote in your hand.

Ratings Comparison

Camp Cornette vs. Yokozuna/Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson

Original: D+

Redo: C

Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Ultimate Warrior vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Undertaker vs. Diesel

Original: B

Redo: B-

Roddy Piper vs. Goldust

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

Original: B

Redo: B

Overall Rating

Original: C-

Redo: C+

I guess it gets better over time.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/03/19/history-of-wrestlemania-with-kb-wrestlemania-12-one-really-long-match-and-not-much-else/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you today: the Wrestler of the Day is Bad News Brown.

Brown (Allen Coage) was very successful in judo before entering wrestling. I believe he’s still the only American heavyweight to medal in the event at the Olympics. He started professional wrestling in 1977 with a lot of his early work in Japan, including this match against Abdullah the Butcher. I’m not sure on the date but it’s likely the early 80s.

Bad News Allen vs. Abdullah the Butcher

Allen gets tired of standing around and goes right after Butcher who sends him outside. Bad News goes under the ring and finds an object to blast Butcher in the head. Back in and ring attendants sweep the streamers out as the match is going on. They slug it out as the bell rings so I’m thinking this is already a DQ. Not that it matters as Brown hits a clothesline and right hand before they headbutt each other a lot. They keep fighting and the sweeping continues until referees break it up. The fight, not the cleaning.

Here’s a rarity as we jump ahead to 1986 in Montreal.

Bad News Allen vs. Daniel Roy

Roy (pronounced Wa) is a jobber with a mullet. Allen is introduced as the Ultimate Warrior about two years before the more famous version would get that name. Bad News takes over with some hard shots to the back and a knee drop for no cover. A headbutt in the corner and an elbow to the head have Roy down again as we’re in full squash territory here. Allen drops a fist drop to the face and takes Roy’s head off with a clothesline. Roy is done and a delayed powerslam gets the pin for Allen. Total squash.

We’ll stay in Canada but go to the other side of the country for a match from Stampede Wrestling for the North American Heavyweight Title, the company’s top belt. I’m pretty sure Owen is defending but I’m not sure.

North American Heavyweight Title: Bad News Allen vs. Owen Hart

We’re joined about ten minutes in (a common practice for Stampede) with Owen hitting a flip splash for two and cranking on Allen’s neck. A legdrop gets two on Allen and Owen stomps away but gets caught in the ribs to knock him into the ribs. Hart gets two off an atomic drop and drops an elbow for the same. We hit a Boston crab on Allen as this has been one sided so far.

Allen powers out and hammers away but a single uppercut drops him for two. The announcer tells us that Owen was dominated the first few minutes of the match but has been in full control ever since. A tombstone plants Allen but he gets his knees up to block a top rope splash. Allen comes back with a slam but gets tossed off the top. Hart nips up but gets caught by a belly to belly suplex. The fans are entirely behind Owen here and he comes back with a spinning cross body off the top but Makhan Singh (a monster) comes in for the DQ.

Rating: C+. Nice match here with Owen’s high flying being complimented by some surprising power. Allen was on defense far more than I was expecting here and the inconclusive ending keeps the door open for a rematch before Owen goes after Singh, which would be a huge feud.

This was near the very end of his time in Stampede. Earlier in his run he participated in the first recorded ladder match against Bret Hart, but the only footage I can find is a short clip.

Soon after it was on to the WWF in early 1988. Brown’s first major appearance was at Wrestlemania IV in a battle royal.

Battle Royal

Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Jim Powers, Paul Roma, Sika, Danny Davis, B. Brian Blair, Jim Brunzell, Bad News Brown, Sam Houston, Jacques Rougeau, Ray Rougeau, Ken Patera, Ron Bass, Junkyard Dog, Nikolai Volkoff, Boris Zhukov, Hillbilly Jim, Harley Race, George Steele

Just for a big trophy here. Steele chills on the floor and Bob Uecker is in on commentary here. Sam Houston is put out quick as is Sika. Brunzell is sent to the apron by Nikolai but he makes the save. Both Bee’s are sent to the apron but Steele pulls Neidhart out to the floor. Both of the Bees are put out as is Ray Rougeau as the ring is thinning out a bit. Dog puts Bass out but has to fight off the Bolsheviks.

Hillbilly Jim is put out and Roma puts Davis out as well. We’re down to nine and Powers is out too. We’ve got Volkoff, Zhukov, Hart, Roma, Jacques Rougeau, Race, Brown, Patera and Dog. Race and Dog headbutt each other with the canine man winning. Nikolai is dumped by Patera and Zukov gets the same treatment.

Patera is pulled to the floor by Volkoff as Race and Rougeau go out. So it’s JYD, Hart and Brown to go. Dog gets on all fours to headbutt both heels but they finally catch up on him with some double teaming. He gets dumped out and Hart and Brown seem to be willing to split the win. Brown of course turns on Hart and dumps him out to win the trophy.

Rating: D+. This was nothing of note other than the potential beginning of Bret’s first aborted singles push. The problem with battle royals is the same most of the time: there’s no reason for most of them to happen and with no story, there’s not much interest in the match. Sometimes you’ll get a good one, but this wasn’t it.

Brown stands next to the trophy (which stands about 6’0) but Bret jumps him and destroys the trophy.

Brown would feud with Bret over the summer, including this match at Wrestlefest 1988.

Bad News Brown vs. Bret Hart

This is fallout from the Mania battle royal and Bret is officially a face now. Brown would get a short feud with Randy Savage soon after this which was very interesting although it never went anywhere really. The referee gets on Brown for being too evil and Brown tells him not to worry about it. That’s a nice line actually.

Brown goes up and Bret is, say it with me, PLAYING POSSUM. Why would anyone buy Bret selling anything ever? It’s what he does and he does it better than anyone. Bret can’t get anything of note going here. Brown yells out for the Ghetto Blaster, his running enziguri finisher. Here comes the Hitman who might not have that name yet. He hits a sweet dive over the top and Brown is in trouble now.

They crank it up and the match starts getting good. Bret doesn’t have the Sharpshooter yet so he’s going for whatever he can get to get a pin. He hits some of the five moves of doom but after a rollup Brown reverses into one of his own and uses the tights for a win. Neidhart comes out and they both beat down Brown to an extent. I’d love to see them in a real fight as Brown would massacre them.

Rating: B-. Solid little match here as neither guy meant anything yet. Hart was supposed to be showcasing himself here and he did that quite well. He looked like this fast guy that could brawl and have solid matches to go with it. Then they put him back with Neidhart a few weeks/months later and this was completely forgotten about of course.

With nothing else to do, Brown would have a random match at Summerslam 1988.

Bad News Brown vs. Ken Patera

Patera is a former Olympic weightlifter who has seen far better days. Bad News is a former Olympian as well, having won a bronze medal in Judo. Brown goes right after Patera during Ken’s entrance and drops a quick elbow for no cover. Patera comes back with a clothesline and takes his jacket off to really get things going. A back elbow puts Bad News down but an elbow drop misses. Brown stomps away on the apron as we’re firmly in punch and kick mode here.

Patera blocks a backdrop with a kick to the chest and gets two off a bad backbreaker. Off to a bearhug by Patera but Brown pokes him in the eye to escape. Patera can’t get his full nelson on in either attempt at the hold so he botches a charge into the corner instead, hitting the post shoulder first. The Ghetto Blaster (enziguri) is enough for the pin by Brown.

Rating: F. Patera was terrible by this point, not even being able to run into Brown’s elbow in the corner properly. Even the announcers were suggesting that he retire at this point, which I believe he did soon after. This match was nothing more than punching and kicking which doesn’t make for a very entertaining few minutes. It’s a product of the times on house shows that, which for all intents and purposes is what this show is: a big house show with a big main event.

Since Brown hasn’t been doing much in these matches, we’ll take a look at a TV match from Wrestling Challenge on January 15, 1989.

Bad News Brown vs. Bill Mulkey

Mulkey isn’t in great shape and looks like he had a mild stroke at some point. We’re less than a week from the Royal Rumble so Heenan and Gorilla spend the entire match talking about the battle royal. Brown destroys Mulkey with strikes and the Ghetto Blaster (enziguri) gets the pin.

The announcers had been talking about Bad News facing Randy Savage due to a feud over Elizabeth. Bad News had said a few things about her and Randy was livid. Many street fights followed, including this one I believe from Chicago.

WWF World Title: Bad News Brown vs. Randy Savage

This is a street fight so it should be awesome. Both are in brawling clothes and this was Savage’s main feud until we got to the Mega Powers Exploding. They head to the floor immediately and Brown gets in some chair shots. He chases Liz around which I think was what started the feud in the first place. Savage tries to help her but gets beaten up again. Savage finally ducks a punch and Brown’s fist hits the post.

Here’s the weightlifting belt so I guess Hogan stole that idea from Savage? Savage goes up top with a chair but jumps into another punch to the ribs. Back to the floor and Savage is thrown into the crowd. In something I cab’t believe I’m saying in 1989, it’s table time. Bad News sets one up in the corner but according to Wrestling Law #4, he winds up going through it. Well he went into the referee who went through it but whatever.

Brown hits his Ghetto Blaster finisher (enziguri) but there’s no referee. Brown isn’t the best guy in the world at first aid as he tries to wake the referee up by stomping him. Brown spends too long with the referee and Savage wakes up so he can grab a backslide of all things. Another referee comes in and counts the pin to end this.

Rating: B-. Considering this was in 1989, WOW. You had violence, you had a table spot, you had referee abuse, you had chair shots. What other match prior to ECW do you remember seeing that in (indies notwithstanding)? Good stuff here and Brown could have been a very valuable man if he was 15 years younger. Fun stuff.

Brown goes after the other referee and puts him in the Tree of Woe. Savage makes the save and they brawl some more. A bunch of wrestlers come out and they can’t stop it either.

Since we’re in the Mega Powers Era, the next logical match was against Hulk Hogan at Saturday Night’s Main Event XX, Bad News’ lone appearance on the show.

Hulk Hogan vs. Bad News Brown

Liz is with Hogan. The arena is weird looking as there’s no entryway but rather what looks like a hockey board that they open up. Brown takes over to start as is the tradition for a lot of Hogan matches. This only lasts a few minutes as I’m amazed at what Brown was back in this era. If he had been around say 8 years later, he would have been pure gold. Hogan goes to the head but it doesn’t work, making me really wonder how many of these stereotypes were unintentional.

Brown accidentally punches the post and this has been pretty one sided so far with Hogan dominating for the most part. Hogan no sells a chair shot and Brown leaves, saying hang on a second. He comes back shortly….with a broom? It goes nowhere and Brown FINALLY takes over with a clothesline. Brown gets a legdrop for two but it’s only kind of a power kickout.

Hogan gets beaten up and then Brown grabs the mic and goes Rock, talking to Hogan and telling him it’s Ghetto Blaster (his finisher, a running enziguri) time which of course misses. Maybe it would have hit if he hadn’t told him that. Hogan hits a high knee to set up the leg drop to end it. Well that’s different. He and Liz pose a lot.

Rating: C+. Not bad at all here. Again, Brown was an AWESOME character and could have been a great heel both here and ten years later. Him vs. Rock or Austin would have sold great and the fact that he was a legit fighter (Bronze medal in judo in the Olympics) would have easily opened the door to MMA if he wanted to go there. Decent little match and different than what you’re used to from Hulk which is a nice change of pace.

We’re in the late 80s so it’s time for a Survivor Series match, this time from 1989.

Dream Team vs. Enforcers

Dusty Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, Red Rooster

Big Bossman, Bad News Brown, Rick Martel, Honky Tonk Man

This is mainly over Dusty vs. Bossman which is Dusty’s first big feud in the company. Dusty stole the nightstick and the hat which has ticked Bossman off. The rest of the guys are there because it’s Survivor Series and we need six more guys. Brutus’ music was awesome, just like the names for the teams. Tito and Honky start things off and for the third straight year Honky and Brutus are in the opening match on this show. I’m not sure what that means.

Tito takes over quickly but Honky gets in one kick before RUNNING over to make a tag to Martel. Rick dropkicks Tito down as Jesse talks about the now broken up Strike Force. Tito atomic drops Martel for two and everyone but Bad News gets in the ring at once. Nothing happens but it’s cool to see. Brown not getting in is perfect for his character too. Off to the Boss Man who is immediately armdragged down by Tito.

Off to Dusty who pounds away as the fans go nuts. Chicago was a big NWA town so it’s easy to see why he’s popular. Brutus comes in to another pop but Boss Man takes him down with a few shots to the back. Honky comes in but misses a fist drop. Beefcake hammers away but Martel makes a blind tag and takes over on Brutus. Rooster comes in and the place goes quiet. When you can’t get a reaction in Chicago, things aren’t that good for you.

Martel hits some knees to the face and it’s off to Honky who dances a lot. Boss Man comes in and they slug it out with the big man taking over with ease. Martel comes back in and drops some knees but gets rolled up for two. Back to Honky as Rooster is in trouble. I’m digging these four man versions already as the match seems less crowded and the guys can stay in the ring a little longer. Rooster and Honky collide and it’s a double tag to give us another battle of Strike Force.

Tito goes loco on Martel and beats him down, but Martel breaks the figure four. Santana tries an O’Connor Roll but Martel rolls through and grabs the trunks for the first elimination. Dusty comes in next and hits a dropkick (and a decent one) followed by the big elbow…for two? We must be in the WWF. Brutus comes in to work on the arm and stomp on Martel’s face when he tries a reverse monkey flip.

Rooster comes in and can’t seem to figure out what to do with a headlock. Martel is like screw you you nitwit and backbreaks him down. Off to Boss Man who slaps on a bearhug. Gorilla keeps calling Brutus the team captain but the team is called the Dream Team and Dusty came out last. Rooster bites out of the hold and Boss Man tags Bad News who isn’t interested in coming in.

After Bad News gets pulled in he takes over because he’s fighting a freaking rooster. Just like last year though, Bad News accidentally gets hit by his partner and he walks out. It’s three on three now and we have Boss Man vs. Brutus. After the Barber gets beaten on some more it’s off to Honky for a belly to back suplex. Out of nowhere Brutus hits a high knee to Honky for the fast pin, making it 3-2 (Brutus, Dusty and Rooster vs. Boss Man and Martel).

Martel immediately comes in and puts a chinlock on Brutus which doesn’t last long. The second version of it does though as the match slows down a lot. A backbreaker puts Brutus down and he goes into the buckle a few times. Brutus grabs a sunset flip again out of nowhere to eliminate Martel and it’s 3-1. Brutus tags in Rooster to throw a bone to Boss Man and after some punches from Rooster, the Boss Man Slam gets the fast pin and it’s 2-1.

Dusty is in next but it’s quickly off to Brutus for some knees to the chest. Back to Dusty as the good guys are using some intelligence (yes, Dusty and Brutus are using intelligence) with the fast tags. Boss Man gets whipped into the ropes and Dusty takes him down with a cross body, likely rupturing at least three vital organs of Boss Man and getting the final pin. I may have been right about those organs.

Rating: C+. Nothing special here but it was fine for an opener. The fans liked most of the good guys and other than Rooster, that was a solid set of guys. The match wasn’t competitive or anything for the most part after the first five minutes but there was nothing particularly bad about it I guess.

At the Royal Rumble, Bad News got in a fight with another legitimate fighter, leading to one of the most bizarre matches you’ll ever see. I’ll throw in the pre-match promo.

Now it’s time for one of the weirdest matches you’ll ever see. We recap Bad News Brown vs. Roddy Piper which started with a double elimination and a brawl at the Rumble. That’s all well and good. We go to Piper in the back where Piper says some people call him Hot Rod but then he turns around to show that half of his body is painted black. That side is called Hot Scot and you can hear the racial issues building from here. Apparently it was something about Michael Jackson.

Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown

An interesting point here is that both guys are legit black belts in judo with Brown being an Olympic bronze medalist in the sport. They immediately take it to the mat in a fist fight until Piper gets two off a cross body of all things. The referee (former heel wrestler Danny Davis) keeps separating them so Brown takes over by sending Piper’s head into the buckle. He yells at Piper for trying to be black and it’s off to a nerve hold.

Brown slugs him down a few times and drops an elbow for two. Somewhere in there a buckle pad is ripped off and it’s Brown going chest first into said buckle. Piper pulls out a single white glove (Brown wore a single black one) and a bunch of punches send Brown to the floor. Piper swings a chair but hits the post and it’s a double countout.

Rating: D. Instead of a brawl or something entertaining, this was much more of a bizarre spectacle than anything else. Brown would be gone soon after this while Piper would shift into the broadcast booth to take over for Jesse. The fight was a lot weaker because of how much stuff there was to distract from the action which is never a good thing.

We’ll close out Brown’s WWF run with a showdown over which pet was better (Brown’s sewer rats or a 20ft snake).

Jake Roberts vs. Bad News Brown

Big Bossman is guest referee for no apparent reason. Brown jumps Jake before Bossman is in the ring but has to bail out of a DDT attempt. Back in and Bad News tosses Jake down and gets two off a legdrop. Jake tries the DDT a second time but Brown bails to the floor again. Roberts follows him out and gets hit in the ribs with a chair which isn’t a DQ for some reason. Back in and Bad News pounds away as Piper asks if Vince has ever smelled Brown. Jake avoids a middle rope elbow and hits the short clothesline but Brown backdrops out of the DDT. Another chair shot to Jake is good for the lame DQ.

Rating: D+. This didn’t have time to go anywhere and I’m still not sure why Boss Man was in here at all. Jake and Brown didn’t do anything else after this and Brown didn’t go after Boss Man after the feud, so I guess he was there as an enforcer for reasons not important enough to explain. The match was just ok.

Brown would leave the company after being lied to about becoming the first black WWF Champion. He would head back to Japan for a promotion called UWF-I, which was a shoot style company (with worked finishes). I’ll be skipping that as it’s far closer to MMA than wrestling and isn’t really something you can review for a series like this.

Overall Brown was a guy WAY ahead of his time. Can you imagine a guy like him in the Attitude Era? A black militant who could talk and was a legitimate Olympic medalist in a combat sport? Bad News was far better as a character than in the ring, but a lot of that was due to him not having a solid set of opponents. Look what happened when he had a guy like Savage who could go move for move with him. Brown is a very interesting worker, but he didn’t have a long body of wrestling to go off of, at least not in the mainstream.

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