WWF 305 Live: Boss Man! Akeem! Earthquake! Hillbilly Jim!

Earthquake vs. Hillbilly Jim WWF SNME 4/28/90 - FUN

ER: This was the last "major" Hillbilly Jim TV appearance, and it's a pretty cool sendoff. It's not talked about as a sendoff, other than Jesse frequently referring to Jim as an idiot (a thing he did a lot during Jim matches). This is a 2 minute match so there's not going to be a lot of development, but it wasn't worked as a straight squash. It's better that way because it meant we got to see Hillbilly back up Quake a few times. WWE has been so overproduced for the last 15 years that it's wild they were just throwing big Hogan-feuding heels out there with only a big blue singlet and matching boots and letting him just stomp out to the ring with a sloppy fucking beard. They assemble stars so differently now, and whenever I watch Tenta I just wonder where all the big fat Canadian 42 year old 27 year olds have gone? 

Hillbilly Jim is really really big but never treated as if he was the same size as Big John Studd for some reason. Seeing how big he looks opposite Quake is so cool, and he had nice body shots and a great fired up babyface cartwheel. Hillbilly Jim: He had a really good cartwheel. Earthquake didn't quite have his WWF formula and pacing down here but you know he's cool because of how hard he still committed to hitting those ropes. His big leaping elbowdrop is even more impressive than the Earthquake Splash, but Earthquake jumping before the splash is iconic and really adds to the effect. Four jumping stomps is right. Three would be too few. 

Big Boss Man vs. Akeem WWF SNME 4/28/90 - VERY GOOD

ER: We didn't get any kind of full satisfying blowoff to the Twin Towers, only smoke blowing off the Chelsea Piers. We got about 5 total minutes of Boss Man/Akeem between this match and the WrestleMania match earlier in the month, and maybe that's fine. We were never going to get any kind of Boss Man/Akeem match to rival the 1987 UWF Big Bubba/One Man Gang match, but surely there's some middle ground we could have landed on. Nevertheless, this is a fun 3 minutes and a great Akeem show. Either he's bumping around for Boss Man - including a major spill when he's backdropped over the top and then flipped into the ring the hard way - or he's throwing some awe-inspiring overhand rights. The best part of the match is Akeem throwing single punches at Boss Man's head, sending Boss Man reeling into the ropes each time. 

Boss Man is huge guy who can work rope rebounds as smoothly as Bobby Eaton. Now when you hear somebody has great rope work, it typically means they're good at finding new ways to spring off them. Not enough guys use them to slump into, to catch their fall, to send them back into the scrum like someone hitting the edge of a mosh pit. Akeem keeps rocking Boss Man, and Boss Man gets sent leaning wayyy back into the ropes, thrown back into another of Akeem's fists whether he was ready or not. 

Maybe the best part of this was Akeem's completely rhythmless jive dancing to the unquestionable greatest WWF entrance theme of all time. Or, maybe it was Akeem's standing splash that doesn't get a single fucking inch of air. Worry not, Akeem is such a mountain that he can squish a guy just fine even if he only goes up on his tiptoes for a splash. Dibiase interrupts before we can get a finish (bookending the way he ambushed Boss Man before the WM6 match), but not before Akeem can take the lowest hang time Boss Man Slam you have ever seen. It looked like a Rock Bottom that Boss Man had delivered it from his knees.  

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