WWF 305 Live: Bam Bam vs. The Undertaker

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Undertaker WWF March to WrestleMania IX 3/28/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: It's a drag that Bam Bam got cut from the WrestleMania card, even though the scrapped match with Kamala almost surely wouldn't have been even as good as this TV special main event. I've told this story a few times, but only one kid in my class "saw" WrestleMania IX on PPV as it happened, so Robert was the one giving me and several other kids the full rundown of every single thing that had happened on the show. I put "saw" in quotes for a reason. I don't know why I put Robert's name in quotes though, as that was his real name. Anyway, several years later I was made to question whether Robert had actually watched a single second of WrestleMania IX, when I rented the Coliseum Video and found no mention of the Kamala/Bigelow match that Robert had described in unquestioned detail. 

Honestly, I probably didn't even know that the match had been officially cut for time until years after that, when I got online in the late 90s, as up until then I probably assumed the match had just been edited off the Coliseum Video release for time, rather than eliminated entirely from the show. I had rented WCW PPV tapes, so I was familiar with matches being edited off home video releases. I've seen Bigelow/Kamala house show matches from around this time that were surely them working out their upcoming WM9 match, and honestly Robert's description of a match he never saw from a show he might not have watched was quite accurate, so even if he was a liar he was at minimum a liar who understood likely match layouts and booking scenarios of the show he was pretending to have seen. This might mean that Robert is/was dangerous. He was the only kid I ever know who went to juvie, but that would have been after WrestleMania IX. 

This match was a great Bam Bam show, as it was almost entirely him clubbing and headbutting Undertaker down to the mat, then making a bunch of "are you kidding me with this fucking guy?" faces as Undertaker would sit up regardless of what Bigelow had just done to him. Bigelow is really good at putting over Undertaker's size, flattening out on all of his bumps to make it look like Undertaker's powers included control over gravity. I liked how splat flat Bam Bam took a drop toehold and Taker's leaping DDT, and Bam Bam is someone who at least acts like his shoulder is really really hurting and demobilizing him while an undead zombie is taking an eternity to back up the turnbuckles and find his footing before jumping off of them. 

There was a good visual of Bigelow taking full control by ducking out of the way of Taker's flying clothesline, so Taker does a cool flipping rolling bump out to the floor. It's all clubbing and slamming and whipping into steps, hitting a high delayed back suplex, and then me swooning for Triple B as he places his hands on his hips in frustration as Undertaker still keeps sitting up. I can see them working variations of this bit on house shows, as here there's an amusing moment where Bigelow slams Taker and walks away, and then...kind of peeks back over his shoulder, like Undertaker is a Boo ghost who will stop sitting up if you catch him in the act. Everyone in the arena knows it's just building up to Bigelow's headbutt sending him diving into an empty pool, but I'd love to see how times in a row Bigelow could reset Undertaker's positioning without getting to the payoff. I think he has enough funny mannerisms and eye rolls to pull off an endless series of Just Trying to Prevent a Guy from Sitting Up. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE