WWF 305 Live: Adonis! Swede! Moondog Spot! Hogan!

Adrian Adonis vs. Swede Hanson WWF 6/22/85 - VERY GOOD

ER: You don't often get to see large man billed as a Swede, also wearing a confederate flag shirt, but here we are. That's why we do this. Gorilla Monsoon makes sure to note that Adrian Adonis was just back from a tour of Japan and had clearly not missed a meal while on tour. Hanson was retired from wrestling for good not long after this, but I would have liked to see this match a year or two later, after Adonis had continued not missing meals (and in fact, likely added MORE meals) and was the larger of the two. Here, Swede was the bigger man. And, the match we did get was super fun, with Adonis putting over Hanson's strength and then firing back with a vengeance on his way to winning. Swede had some nice arm control stuff to start, working a hammerlock and driving his weight into a downed Adonis. Adonis is good at flopping around and looking like he can't get away from Swede's hammerlock, and I thought Adonis's offense when he finally worked through it was awesome. He hit some very hard elbows and chops on Hanson, then kicks him in the stomach (Hanson sold the stomach kick as if he had just been hit in the gut with a dodge ball), dropped a couple of great elbowdrops on the side of Swede's head, hit a perfect kneedrop to the temple, knocks Swede to the floor, all great stuff. On the floor Adonis throws a sick left at Hanson's neck - the kind of shot that flusters Monsoon on commentary - then gets a wooden chair to attack him with. Hanson stops Adonis's swing, and this whole match really got great in the home stretch. Adonis hits an awesome middle rope elbow to finish, after Swede caught knees on a splash, and I love that they at least matched Swede up with some big guys during his odd run. 

Hulk Hogan vs. Moondog Spot WWF Championship Wrestling 3/29/86 - FUN

ER: Moondog Spot gets a title shot on a Saturday morning! Spot is a good Hogan opponent, as he's a big guy, but not the typical huge guy that Hogan went against so much, and he bumps like a lead weight. Seeing someone with the Masa Saito body get bumped around and just thwack to the mat is always going to look cool. The only drawback, which is the same drawback as a ton of matches from this era, is that it's only a 2 minute match. There is only so much you can do in 2 minutes, and a number of these feel like they could have been especially memorable with 2 extra minutes. We got what felt like a surprising amount for the short runtime, and it's because this era works these 2 minute competitive matches as full sprints. So you get both of them throwing hard closed fist punches across their foreheads, an axe bomber followed by Hogan's great elbowdrop (still don't know why Hogan stopped using his very good elbowdrop sometime after 1986), and I loved Spot's load of bricks bumps. Hogan came out with taped up ribs, so we got a lot of Spot throwing heavy arms at Hogan's midsection, and Spot had this great corner slump after taking a lariat. Hogan actually breaks out the vertical suplex to set up the legdrop, and it's way cooler to see him hitting a vertical suplex on Spot than just having him run into a big boot. 

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