On Brand Segunda Caida: Bob Cook in WWF Pt. II

Bob Cook vs. Duke Droese WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/28/95

ER: This was practically constructed as if Cook were the underdog babyface and Droese was the mean heel. Droese goes to a chinlock less than a minute in, which just comes off odd. I am not opposed to the chinlock as a move, and Droese has a nice one because he has big arms and locks it in, but it's so strange to do one so early in the match - a match designed to showcase Droese, no less. Did he get unexpectedly winded? Possibly. But this might be one of the few examples I've seen of a babyface showcase squash where the babyface hits a long chinlock in any part of the match. How many *heel* squash matches do you see a chinlock used? It's weird. This is weird. Cook gets to fight out of the chinlock with a nice wristlock, even if it's fleeting as Droese just tosses him to the mat. Cook fights from his knees with a nice punch to the stomach and gets to fire one off standing. And Droese doesn't opt to finish Cook off with the trash compactor, instead hitting a great high rotation powerslam and then coming off the ropes with a nice high windup elbow drop. That chinlock has really thrown me off today. I'm sure the answer is simple, but I may take a break from wrestle writing to think about that babyface squash match chinlock.

Bob Cook vs. Adam Bomb WWF Raw 5/29/95

ER: This is surely the peak of the WWF Bob Cook, I absolutely loved this match. This was go go go, an absurd amount of offense packed into barely 2 minutes. And it was rather competitive, Bomb working fast and light while Cook would catch him with gorgeous punches or shoulder shots to the gut. Adam Bomb actually seemed really good in 1995, like he was really figuring everything out. He is a big guy who was working like Barry Windham here, and that's a great step for Bomb. Bomb worked some nice Windham style armdrags and a big hip toss, with Cook feeding him quick on bodyslams and backdrops, and getting up for a big back suplex. But Bomb had a real charm here, and took a lot of time to connect with the crowd after moves, with Cook being a perfect canvas for an Adam Bomb showcase. Bomb was gone from WWF just a couple months later, even though he was kept strong on his way out. I don't know what happened, but I think they gave up on him too early; he could have been a big part of 1996.

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The 1995 King of the Ring Qualifying Matches, Part 1

Mabel vs. Adam Bomb WWF In Your House 5/14/95

ER: This was big man perfection. Barely 2 minutes, all killer no filler, a great Bomb performance in a quick loss. A lot of guys could get pouty knowing they have to lose on PPV in under 2 minutes, but Bomb just took the opportunity to show off all his offense. Mabel is a total giant fat guy superstar, he starts the match squishing Bomb with an avalanche, then missing a full speed avalanche bump that shakes the ring. Adam Bomb goes on his big offense run, hits a big flying shoulderblock to Mabel's back - Mabel taking a super fast forward rolling bump through the ropes to the floor, crazy bump - which leads to a nice Bomb pescado. He is constant motion because he knows he has basically one minute to shine. He climbs to the top and hits a big shoulder tackle that Mabel takes his big back bump for. I mean this whole thing kicks ass. Mabel makes quick work on the comeback, hits his rolling heel kick hard into Bomb's stomach, and drops him with a full weight powerslam and just flattens him on the pin. This is how you do a two minute match.


Bob Holly vs. Mantaur WWF Raw 5/15/95

ER: When the Vince biopic eventually gets made as a moderately well received theatrical release, I hope they get Walton Goggins to play known Vince workout buddy Bob Holly. Danny Huston will be Vince but you gotta have a couple weird workout scenes with Walton Goggins. And this match was really good, definitely the best Mantaur match of the batch that I've retroactively watched. Mantaur mauled Holly while Holly bumped effectively, with some nicely peppered in Holly nearfalls and a triumphant Holly win, it was a really fun match structure. Mantaur got to show his power with a couple big powerslams and a sidewalk slam, and dropped nice elbow drops (among his best from what I've seen). He has a nice elbowdrop and should have done it even more. Holly bumped around impressively for all of it, real good babyface. Holly takes an especially big bump to the floor and it was the first time I'd really seen Mantaur come off like a monster. Holly's comebacks were all good, with a convincing school boy and a really great missile dropkick that I don't remember him having. Mantaur really leaned into it and it added to the harder than average hitting feeling of the match. Mantaur loses in convincing fashion, but it felt like Holly got an upset. This was a good TV match.


Razor Ramon vs. Jacob Blu WWF Superstars 5/20/95

ER: On paper this feels like a 15 seed taking on a 2 seed. I mean Jacob had worked exclusively tag matches, but he got an itch to just go and join a singles match tournament? I mean they had some interesting singles match guys that would have been far better utilized as an opening round guy. Lawler, Hakushi, Pierre, Man Mountain Rock! All could have slotted in nicely. But here's Jacob Blu going up against one of the tournament favorites...and the match is fun as hell. Blu is limited, but willing to work active. He throws a bunch of big running boots, many hitting Razor right in the head, but leaving nice openings when they miss. Razor is a good puncher whose name should be included more often in the great puncher discussions, but Blu holds his own. He is wrestling a much more interesting style here, before more of the tenets of white nationalism had crept in. White supremacy dulls you too much. But a big guy who just attacks with big boots, yakuza kicks, elbow drops, and a grounded headlock will go a long way with me. Jacob doesn't even have a great headlock, but I'm a total sucker for those great headlocks where the person applying it lies down flat to increase the pressure. Razor takes a huge bump over the top to the floor, gets a surprise nearfall on a small package, hits a big bulldog off the middle buckle, and then gets a school boy when Savio Vega comes out to attack Eli and Zeb. I was surprised at how much Razor gave to Jacob here, but this was a Jacob Blu dominated match. Leave it to Razor to take a guy who had never worked a singles match before any of these people, and make him look like a guy who belonged in the KOTR tournament.


King Kong Bundy vs. Shawn Michaels WWF Raw 5/22/95

ER: This was a real good Shawn performance, because there were some moments where Bundy came off like a total load. Shawn made up for that by hitting Bundy in the face and really flinging his body into him. With a stronger Bundy control segment this could have been a real gem. Bundy tries to jump Michaels during his awful Striptease entrance, eats the buckles, and Michaels hits a sweet jumping knee to bump Bundy to the floor (big bump through the ropes to the floor from Bundy), allowing Michaels to finish removing his chaps and vest and police hat before he goes up top and hits a great plancha. Shawn was hammy in a good way in this one, as he kept taking aggressive attacks to Bundy, while fitting in time to antagonize Dibiase at ringside. Bundy is a bit too tentative to really step to that next level as an egg shaped monster thumb. It's very possible he was going through some pain, as he just holds up a lot on some of his stuff. There's a missed splash that looks like he was getting down on his knees to look for a contact lens. And when he blocks a sunset flip by just plopping onto Shawn, he really needs to plop, in that Super Porky "I can't hold this back to only 80%" kind of way. But he does drop a nice elbow as Shawn was trying to get up, grabs a nice meaty bearhug, stands on Shawn's throat with his boot, all of that stuff was great. But he was kind of clunky at taking offense, particularly a big crossbody from Michaels. He totally brick walls Michaels, but not really in an intentional or cool way. Michaels just bounces off of him with the crossbody and then Bundy just tips over as if he was doing a trust fall with nobody there. It felt so disconnected from the actual move. Still, the structure was sound and Michaels worked hard, and even a tentative fat guy is going to have several cool fat guy moments.

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WWF In Your House #1 5/14/95

Sometimes you get in the mood to watch the 1995 King of the Ring, but then you just don't feel right watching the 1995 King of the Ring without seeing all of the qualifying matches. How could I enjoy the PPV without seeing what all of the competitors went through on their respective journeys? I couldn't. The first KOTR Qualifier happened on the very first In Your House, that's where we start, and really I can't think of a better place to start.


1. Bret Hart vs. Hakushi

ER: This is one of the more acclaimed matches from the early In Your House shows, and it makes sense that they'd want to start the show off with a solid memorable match, so sure you send Bret out there. He's the guy who could reliably start a show with a good 15 minutes, so you make him work twice and that's just smart booking on your premier "extra" PPV. Hakushi wasn't a guy who was at PPV status at this point, so him opening up the PPV is an impressive role to be put in. It feels like booking to the internet fans, before most of us had the internet. And the match is a little overrated; there are several moments of varying degrees of miscommunication, and I don't love the layout of the first half (Hakushi takes most of it and then Bret just takes over and takes the rest of it, before the hot extended finish).

But this was a good match, and a match with a ton of smart memorable moments that deserves the attention it gets. Hart takes a classic bump chest first into the buckle that allows Hakushi to take over, and the finishing stretch is admittedly great enough to overlook earlier hitches. It all begins with a fantastic moment where Bret is firing back and taking over, his strikes look really sharp tonight, momentum is building, and then Shinya grabs his foot and generally makes his presence known for a third time. Bret takes a killer theatrical bump off the foot grab, really rolling all the way across the ring as if his shoelaces were tied together and he was forced to jog. And Bret responds by running back across the ring and taking out Shinya with a tope! What an all time great sequence. Hart occupies himself really well later on, when Hakushi hits a swank Asai moonsault and Hart tangles with Shinya until the big moment. Plus we get Hart hitting a vertical suplex from the apron to the floor, sending both of them crashing.  Hakushi had really pretty stuff, a perfectly placed top rope diving headbutt, big missed springboard splash, diving clothesline that fans cheered for, and he bumped big for Bret (including a cool flip bump off a lariat), and threw a bunch of great uppercuts. The finish had a couple good nearfalls, and a couple classic moments, so yeah I guess it's deserving of its status.

2. Jeff Jarrett/The Roadie vs. Razor Ramon

ER: Jarrett is wearing a garish Beetlejuice get-up, his '95 ring gear is truly among the worst. And this was also our WWF in-ring debut of The Roadie, another thing to entice the kids into begging their folks to shell out for another PPV. And they'd be getting their monies worth, because this PPV is an easy 2 for 2. Jarrett is great a getting overwhelmed by Razor, but the Jarrett/Roadie control segment was awesome. Roadie was throwing tons of elbowdrops, a big lariat off the middle buckle to the floor, good kneedrop off the middle rope, a fun debut. And Jarrett is a maestro of getting right into position on accidental cross up spots, colliding a couple times with Roadie to the delight of the crowd. Jarrett's offense never looked prettier, his dropkicks best in the business and his mannerisms making him the most punchable dude. Razor came off like the top guy in the company, Jarrett made the pace exciting, this was good.

They jump Razor after losing, and Aldo Montoya comes out to save Razor buts gets tossed fairly quickly over the top to the floor, and then Savio Vega debuts by coming out as an unknown taking all of that hero spotlight that Aldo Montoya desperately wanted to grab. Aldo Montoya, finally seeing his shot, flying down with a ton of heart and no plan. Tony Garea and Rene Goulet and security guards remove the unknown hero Savio Vega from the ring, and you can even see Montoya rolling back into the ring to check on Razor as Savio is lead out. "Yeah you missed what happened, I ran 'em off while you were recovering in the corner, took out both of 'em..."

And then they cut to a Sid package that prominently shows Sid just icing Aldo from several camera angles. And this is a fantastic video package, really making Sid come off like a total killer. Sid makes some of the best faces into the camera, his Psycho Sid music was a campily perfect take on a Harry Manfredini/Bernard Hermann score, and there were great shots of him blinking like a weirdo and then powerbombing big dudes like Bam Bam. This package would have probably made Sid my favorite wrestler had I seen this when it happened.

3. Mabel vs. Adam Bomb

ER: This was big man perfection. This was barely 2 minutes, all killer no filler, a great Bomb performance in a quick loss. A lot of guys could get pouty knowing they have to lose on PPV in under 2 minutes, but Bomb just took the opportunity to show off all his offense. Mabel is a total giant fat guy superstar, he starts the match squishing Bomb with an avalanche, then missing a full speed avalanche bump that shakes the ring. Adam Bomb goes on his big offense run, hits a big flying shoulderblock to Mabel's back - Mabel taking a super fast forward rolling bump through the ropes to the floor, crazy bump - which leads to a nice Bomb pescado. He is constant motion because he knows he has basically one minute to shine. He climbs to the top and hits a big shoulder tackle that Mabel takes his big back bump for. I mean this whole thing kicks ass. Mabel makes quick work on the comeback, hits his rolling heel kick hard into Bomb's stomach, and drops him with a full weight powerslam and just flattens him on the pin. This is how you do a two minute match.

4. Smoking Gunns vs. Owen Hart/Yokozuna

ER: Hot 5 minute tag, everyone on this show has been really great at making the most of their allotted ring time, it's given the entire show such an exciting pace. Everything feels nicely mapped out to a match's potential effectiveness. Owen tries to one up Bret by taking the same chest first corner bump, but Bret's earlier bump was better. Gunns look good, a couple nice double teams, big dropkicks, hard clothesline, a cool flying elbow; Yokozuna was a great monster, a great brick wall, but also does great vulnerable giant spots like running fast into the ringpost. The finish to this is sudden and violent. Bart misses a crossbody and flies hard into the middle rope and crashes fast to the floor, Cornette causes a distraction, and Yokozuna casually walks over and splats Bart's face with a legdrop. Bart is done.

5. Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart

ER: After the Hakushi match, Hart hopped off the apron and tweaked his knee, and ever since that all everyone has talked about on this PPV has been Bret's knee. And then Bret comes out for the match doing this really bad exaggerated limp, and Lawler is laughing and licking his chops, and then it turns out that Bret was just faking the whole thing to make Lawler thing he had an advantage. It's a fun easy story that they kept tending to throughout the evening, and it's far more interesting than just "Bret is having a second match". Lawler was so on point in 1995, maybe only Finlay from this era showed more on selling than him. He was so good at taking and putting over offense, really making Bret's punches snap, doubling over with several different ways of holding his stomach after taking a shot, and takes a really high backdrop. 

Hart drops him with a gorgeous Russian legsweep, nails the elbow, but Hart does basically no sell Lawler's big textbook piledriver, which is a spot I don't like. Hart was only down for 4 seconds or so, and then hit his own piledriver. These two are usually more clever at how to use a spot like that, this felt more like Kurt Angle laying out the match for them. There's a fun BS finish where the ref gets his leg tied up in the ropes because of Shinya, and then Hakushi sneaks in and lays out Hart. Lawler gets this perfect, super obnoxious pinfall on a now knocked out Bret, grabbing his legs and flipping over into a bridge like he was Yoshinari Ogawa. I do wish this one was longer - that we either got more time before the big Hakushi headbutt, or we got a surprise Bret rally after the headbutt - and these two were in a good groove before the interference. We only got 6 minutes and it was the first match on the card that felt like it didn't get the right amount of time.

6. Sid vs. Diesel

ER: Diesel is a guy who I think has aged really great over the past decade. Nash in general was far better in the ring than anyone was giving him credit for 25 years ago. He worked a lot of monster vs. monster matches, and he was really good at creating a King Kong vs. Godzilla feel. Sid had a ton of charisma and presence and that was underrated at the time too. This is what 14 year old me would have wanted from a battle of two giant badasses. Nash was a great babyface and really flew into Sid with big energy: Big elbows, big running lariat, huge leaping corner lariat, really made everything look like buildings falling into each other. Sid is not as exciting on control as he is at letting Nash crash into him, but he has nice simple clubbing forearms and axe handle shots, and holds an okay camel clutch for probably too long. But the big moments play real big, with Sid hitting a big powerbomb that they later say injured Diesel's elbow (featuring a hilarious moment where Vince lead off an episode of Raw shouting in full Vince voice "Tonight we'll check in on Diesel who is recovering from reconstructive elbow surgery!!!"), and Diesel comes back and hits a great one of his own. Tatanka runs in to eventually stomp out Diesel, but it felt like an appropriate finish for what we had been through. This was a real good battle of the monsters, two guys who in the match felt like arguably the biggest babyface vs. the biggest heel.


ER: The first In Your House was a super fun PPV top to bottom, not anything approaching a bad match on the entire card. It's a tight two hours with complementary pairings and everyone feeling like they were trying to put on a big show. There was nothing high level, but one of the highest floors throughout. Super recommended.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Inside the WWF 1994

ER: My great buddy Josh is over today for Thanksgiving, Rachel is downstairs slaving away on an incredible feast, and Coliseum Videos are just about Josh's favorite kind of wrestling. So as we awaited our magnificent feast (and my god was it so far beyond epic, full Thanksgiving dinner, all prepped by Rachel, completely unreal that she went through this and nailed it. I don't deserve a damn thing), we decided to pop in this fresh crunchy slab of VHS. He liked the sound of the vignettes on this one, so we tossed it into the Video Cassette Recorder instead of wasting our time watching football. And our first visual is of Bret being caught in the locker room wearing nothing but a towel. Inside the WWF indeed.

Crush vs. Undertaker

ER: I cannot think of a wrestler I ever cared less about than Crush. Every single iteration. I can't at all remember getting excited for a Crush appearance, no matter my age. It's possible that I hated his ombre mullet, without being able to formulate those feelings into words or concrete thoughts. But this is actually kinda decent. Crush hits Taker in the jaw with the edge of a chair, and does an awesome press slam spot, pressing Taker several times before slamming him, Taker misses his crossbody in cool almost Dustin Rhodes fashion, and really it was probably as interesting as it was going to be. Not a bad start.

Razor Ramon/Marty Jannetty vs. Shawn Michaels/Diesel

ER: What a weird commentary duo on this, Stan Lane and Ted Dibiase. Lane does this weird thing where he literally commentates while doing a Vince impression. He tries to make his voice sound exactly like Vince, and what's weird is that he actually DOES sound like Vince. And the match is fun as they start with Diesel/Jannetty which is really smart, as it builds right away to Razor coming in. Michaels pops in occasionally to cockily get a cheap shot and tag out, so mostly we get Diesel dominating Jannetty, and it's great. Diesel drops him with a huge backbreaker and stretches him over his knee, hits a hard big boot, locks in a tight bearhug that Marty is great at selling (even letting out an anguished "OH GOD" during a tight squeeze), and it's such a surprising layout. On paper you'd expect to see Marty and Shawn work most of this, but Diesel is in there for 90% of the match, and it builds to this gigantic Razor hot tag. The hot tag just flat out explodes Razor hits the awesome 360 punch to knock Diesel off the apron, and we get a cool moment where Jannetty drags himself back in to hit a superkick on Shawn, and Razor absolutely plants him with a like a Rock Bottom chokeslam for the pin. This was cool.

Tatanka vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

ER: This is super Tatanka heavy at the beginning, with a bunch of Tatanka offense that only starts by him reversing a Bigelow slam in some way. Like Bam Bam picks hit up in a big slam and eats a DDT. Bam Bam is really great at making Tatanka's offense look good. Tatanka crashes and burns on a big crossbody off the top to allow Bam Bam to take over for the first time. Bammer hits a couple really nice headbutts, with Tatanka selling them really great, like he got socked in the eye. Tatanka rolls to the floor to recover, and "He's been out there since the Eisenhower administration," says Johnny Polo in reference to Tatanka being wrecked on the floor, in a reference that surely seemed dated 25 years ago when this video hit stores. I like Bam Bam a lot here, splatting Tatanka with his butt off a sunset drop, nice powerslam, convincingly jaws with the crowd to give Tatanka his comeback, and damn does he bump HUGE for Tatanka's comeback. He flies so high up into the air for a shoulderblock, like he was a jobber bumping for the Pounce, and he takes this wild bump to the floor on a tomahawk chop, just flying out through the bottom ropes and flying past the apron to the floor really fast. He gets counted out, and then comes in with a pair of scissors to attack to Tatanka, which is an angle I don't remember. Bigelow keeps trying to cut his hair and I don't remember any hair match angles from this era, but Tatanks (accidentally misspelled that but I kinda like Tatanks) gets the scissors and confusedly looks at Bam Bam's smooth dome.......and then grabs Luna's mullet and the crowd goes APE. Earl Hebner runs down and fucking KICKS the scissors out of the hand, and this whole thing took a weird and awesome turn. I dug all of this.

Bret Hart vs. Adam Bomb

ER: There's a white girl with mousey brown hair and braces who flips her lid for Hart's entrance music. Had I known her, that girl would have been my world.  Boy Bryan Clark certainly was a guy who was in professional wrestling for awhile. But a guy like Adam Bomb is a pretty perfect Bret opponent, because all you need is a couple slams and a decent back elbow and Bret would work decently with that. We pepper in a couple cool brief Bret comebacks, like when Bomb goes for a forearm and hits the ringpost. Bomb isn't great, but he's fairly engaging while working the chinlock that leads to Bret's comeback. They zoom in to show Bomb's lizard eye contacts and it hits me that we hadn't got a closeup on those eyes. If I had to put in those uncomfortable fucking contacts and they didn't show me in close up I would be pisssssssssed. Like Sean Astin having to wake up an hour early on the LOTR set to get giant feet glued on, that we would rarely see on film. Hart's comeback is switched up a little: no backbreaker, but still a big Russian leg sweep, misses the elbow off the middle to give a cool tease of a possible Hart loss, overall this was about what you'd expect from a Hart vs. stiff match. But, that's a formula enjoy, a comfortable formula.

Doink vs. Randy Savage

ER: And this is actually pretty great. This is still Matt Borne, who is obviously a really good match up for Savage, and both guys work really hard. Savage takes a few totally unnecessary bumps to the floor, not even doing any moves, just doing planchas to the floor and landing on his feet to show frustration. A lot of this match weirdly happens outside, there's a lot of Savage going after Doink and Doink trying to avoid him, Savage all energy. Borne is great at his character here, and I like that he's hardly laughing like he usually did, just annoying Savage. He misses the Whoopie Cushion which is a tough move to hit and miss, and eats a great Savage lariat to the floor. A second Doink gets involved, crawls under the ring, and sneaks up on Savage and hits a nasty shot right to the back of the his head. Under ring Doink then holds Savage's leg when he spills to the floor, so the original Doink wins by count out. I thought it was a pretty awesome way to do a count out finish and the match structure was really weird, so much time spent outside the ring. Annoyingly, lamely, Savage gets the referee to come back out and check under the ring and gets the match reversed in his favor when they find another Doink. That brought it back more into Coliseum territory.

ER: We get this weird and WONDERFUL 10 second segment with Earthquake, where we just bump into fun, chill, ultra casual Earthquake backstage wearing a windbreaker, who just says "Oh hey guys,   it's your old friend Earthquake, just letting you know that I'm back!" That's weird. I mean it was great, but it's weird right?

Ludvig Borga vs. Razor Ramon

ER: This is really exciting as it's the only Coliseum Video that Borga made it on to, and they make him look really strong against Razor. The early part of the match is all Borga, knocking Razor to the floor, literally just shoving Razor to the floor out of a lock up (great spot), big shoulderblock that knocks Razor on his butt, and we get an actual great knucklelock exchange that has Borga do a long build to Ramon getting powered down to his knees, but fighting back to do a cool knucklelock Northern Lights suplex. Borga gets a lot, some of it good (a nice fast wind up elbow) some of it had its heart in the right place (big flying clothesline). Borga even gets a kind of shocking pinfall, as he hits a lariat off the top and gets an actual 3 count, but Razor's foot was on the ropes. There's a really nice suplex by Razor, bringing Borga in from the apron, great tease around Borga suplexing Ramon to the floor, but both men go down selling once Razor suplexes him in the ring. We get a really weird Finnish (HA!!!!!!) when Michaels runs in and cracks Razor in the head with the belt, and after a long period of both men being down they actually let Borga get the pin. Borga celebrates all around the ring with the title and looks crushed when they take it away, and this was during that weird time when there were two IC title belts so there are just too many belts around the ring and nobody knows what is happening. Those are two weirdly overbooked finishes in a row on this tape. Borga really took 80% of the match and Hall bumped all over for him, totally delivered what I wanted it to.

Shawn Michaels vs. Lex Luger

ER: You know who was great? Lex Luger. That guy was great, loved him during all his 95/96 WCW run, and here he is looking great. Go figure. Michaels is also IC champ in this match (Ramon was IC champ in the prior match, they were doing some thing where Michaels was claiming he never lost the belt) and heel Michaels was unquestionably the best iteration of him. He's a little sluggish on offense here, does a chinlock that drags a bit, but bumps impressively for Luger's big offense run, and Luger looks fantastic in it. Luger's shoulderblocks and lariats were on, hits a great back elbow, nice powerslam, Luger looked like clearly the best babyface in the company here. Sadly Michaels immediately opts to get counted out so he won't lose his title that isn't his, and Luger used the old Narcissist forearm and really smashes Diesel with it. I didn't actually realize Luger used that metal plate forearm once he was All American. Finish to this couldn't have been much lamer, but the words itself was the goods.

Cage Match: Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna

ER: I know I've seen this match before and really liked it, and my memories were totally correct because this is awesome. Yoko was so damn good and Bret worked snug enough here that he always looked totally plausible as a guy doing damage to Yoko. Bret is smart about this as most of his advantages comes with Yoko missing big offense, like a big elbowdrop and a big legdrop or missing a charge into the cage, and Bret would take over from all of those things with nice uppercuts, with Yoko not being fazed for long. They did a bunch of really smart stuff around cage escapes, good teases, with one amusing one where Hart is almost over the top and gets yanked down by one big Yoko arm. Hart does really great with it, dropping fast onto the top rope dick first and Yoko starts laughing. Yoko is so great here, I mentioned Hart worked snug to make up for the size difference, but Yoko has a bunch of great shots I don't remember him using including just a straight punch right to the throat, also a sick uppercut. And since a lot of the match is built around Yokozuna missing big moves so Bret can work in offense, he also misses things I don't remember him ever doing, like a big splash. For as big as he was I don't remember Yoko ever just doing a standing splash. Yoko really bumps around big for Hart, loved that big flat back banana peel bump, and Hart actually hits the Russian Leg Sweep on him, except he does it exactly like the Zig Zag since Yoko would be impossible to leg sweep. Finish is complicated but it's unique because it's drawn out compared to other similar finishes of the era. Yoko brings in his ancient ceremonial salt bucket because that's a thing, and he and Hart trade using it as a weapon. Once it got brought in I assumed it was a one and done, Yoko hitting Hart and escaping, or Yoko losing and being hit and Hart escaping, but they did some more teasing with that. This match got a lot of time, 20 minutes plus, but they were so clever with how they milked everything. This match ruled.

ER: This tape was killer, one of the best Coliseum releases out there. It bookended a really special Thanksgiving, and I'm still completely full while finishing this. I have stopped typing several times to eat pie. Caramel apple pecan pie. It's impossible. Happy Thanksgiving!

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