On Brand Segunda Caida: Heavenly Bodies!

Heavenly Bodies vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala AJPW 6/4/94

ER: I really wish more of the Heavenly Bodies' lone All Japan tour had made tape. The tour was filled with intriguing pairings, including several matches against Fuchi/Ogawa and The Fantastics, and a Holy Demon Army vs. Stan Hansen/Bodies match that has me drooling. They also had several matches against Abby/Kimala II, and one of those was taped for TV. It's JIP, and for the Bodies' sake I hope the early part of the match that we didn't see went better than the match we did see. Because this was a couple of big fat beasts absolutely decimating the Bods. And it's kind of great. It starts with Abdullah and Kimala working over Prichard's leg, and that leg gets worked OVER. I mean we get several minutes of these two chunks just falling directly onto that leg, with Prichard yelling "My leg! My leg!" the whole time. I love it. Abby is dropping his elbows on the leg, Kimala is dropping fat man Ernie Ladd legdrops on the leg, and my favorite part is that Kimala and Abby are both guys who take forever to stand back up. So one holds the leg, the other drops their piano body onto it, and then we see a lot of loose flapping body parts as they get up and do it all again. Kimala goes up top for an epic big splash. Giant Kimala is shorter than Kamala, but he is definitely fatter, and he doesn't even use the turnbuckle! Every single part of this splash looked hazardous as hell, and he just crushes Prichard with it, his giant godless savage momentum sending his body weight crashing forward and nearly making him faceplant. When Prichard is finally allowed to his feet, you better believe he was selling that damn knee. We get an incredible double team, where Kimala smooshes Prichard with a rewind worthy avalanche, and as he backs away Abdullah shoves him in the back to press him back into Prichard. Abdullah must have had awesome shoving strength, because Kimala really flies back into Prichard. Poor Prichard, just spending every second of his ring time getting flattened by these two.

Del Ray finally tags in, every bone in Prichard's leg turned to cornmeal at this point, and Del Ray goes right after Kimala. He drops Kimala with a nice DDT (Kimala takes a cool rolling bump off the side of his head), but Del Ray gets much too confident and splats hard on a missed moonsault. I like that aggression, and the DDT came off triumphant considering the completely one-sided beating that had taken place. After the DDT and missed moonsault, Del Ray only fares better in comparison to Prichard because his leg does not get pulverized into chalk dust. But Del Ray has no chance, as once he's laid out for Abby's running elbow, Prichard can't do a damn thing to stop it. The second Prichard gets in the ring, Kimala runs over and flattens him into his own corner. Prichard couldn't even make it past his corner. This is the kind of beating a team takes when they're moving on to a new territory, or a team is being punished, but you don't usually see these kind of one-sided matches in All Japan. I'm not sure what kind of deal they worked out to go on an AJ tour while they were in the middle of working WWF, but I can't imagine this is how WWF wanted them portrayed on TV. Doesn't bother me a lick, because this was nothing but two planet sized fatties crashing into two Heavenly Bodies.


Heavenly Bodies vs. 1-2-3 Kid/Bob Holly WWF Raw 1/16/95

ER: I started this episode of Raw for a different reason, but when I saw this match I clearly wasn't going to skip past it. It's a real hot showcase for the Bods, but I'm getting the sense that a ton of their tag matches were total showcases for them. I don't think it necessarily takes away from their opponents, but they seem to be filled with so many ideas that it's easy for opponents to get swallowed whole. Jimmy Del Ray usually feels like the standout in these matches, but this was more of a Prichard show. Del Ray had a great superkick, Prichard threw a cool gutwrench powerbomb, and the double teams always look great. Look at how damn hard Jimmy plants Prichard on the atomic legdrop, how precise the aim was; this could have easily been Prichard getting his tailbone slammed right into Holly's eye socket, instead it's a picture perfect brutal assisted legdrop. There are a couple things I don't like: It's a 5 minute match, structured with the Bodies mostly dominated the first 4.5, with the Kid hot tag signaling the near immediate end of things. So it felt like half a match. Also we had a spot I almost always dislike, one of those crossbody flipover reversals that just looked like Holly ate a full force crossbody...and then flipped over. It rarely looks like a guy is actually rolling through with the momentum of a move. The Bodies were so synced up though, a real treat to watch as a team. They have great tough guy spots, and great stooge spots. The best stooge spot in the match (and a great spot you don't see often past the territory days) was when The Bodies joined hands to run at Holly with a tandem lariat, only for Holly to dive onto their arms, which forces Tom and Jimmy to clonk heads. The best kind of spot to lead to a hot tag. Kid's hot tag is too cruelly short, a couple spinkicks (love how Prichard ricochets off the ropes after taking his) but the finish is MIGHTY inspired, a GREAT tag match finish. Bodies have Kid up for a tandem vertical suplex, and Holly spears one of them out of nowhere, allowing Kid to hit a fisherman's suplex variation. That's an awesome finish to a(nother) great Bodies showcase.