Found Footage Friday: 1993 WWF House Show Oakland 2/13/93

WWF House Show Oakland 2/13/93

MD: Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers on Twitter) has launched a new service releasing rarities twice a month. It's honestly more than we can easily keep track of, which is a great thing, but we'll feed stuff into Found Footage Friday as much as we can. Reach out to him for more information. This was a house show that neither Eric or I had ever seen from a period where we have both seen a lot of house shows. 

ER: This is an example of the kind of house show I would have been able to attend at age 12, had my parents not kept secret from me the entire existence of live pro wrestling. We lived about 60 miles north of Oakland/San Francisco. We went into the city regularly for Giants games, occasionally for A's games, once for a baseball card show at the Moscone center, and every Christmas season so my mom could see the big window displays at the downtown SF department stores. We would not have gone into the city to see professional wrestling, and I believe that my parents hid the existence of house shows from me with the same ferocity of Peggy Hill hiding the concept of Competitive Eating from Bobby. Newspaper pages were cut out, lies were told. This show happened just after my 12th birthday and this review should be filled with me sharing memories of that happy day when my father or poor mother took me to this show. But they were trying to raise me right. 

1. Tatanka vs. The Predator

MD: The Predator is Horace Boulder with face paint. We hit this JIP and it's kind of nuts how Tatanka sets the mood immediately. Super hard chops in the corner, everything looking crisp, including an atomic drop. I've gotten the sense in revisits that I didn't appreciate Tatanka enough when I was younger, but everything looked great. He missed an elbow drop which let Predator take over. You'll be happy to know that he had the family legdrop. They worked a pretty decent grounded chinlock with the crowd absolutely going up for Tatanka's hope spots. They were hot for the opener here, especially so when Tatanka started the war dance. He absolutely flattened Predator figuratively with one final chop and then literally with the Samoan Drop. There was a reason why it wasn't just Strongbow but Wahoo as well that gave him the headdress I guess. Nice brisk opener here. I vaguely wonder if there are some great indy Tatanka matches from the late 90s we should try to find. Vaguely.

ER: I am actually a pretty big Horace Boulder Guy. Over the last 25 years of my wrestling fandom I have tried to sell more than one person in my life on the Idea of Horace Boulder/Horace Hogan. How cool is it that there was a guy who out there who was related to the biggest star in pro wrestling and even had the exact same movement, height, and posture as that biggest star, and that he also wrestled exactly the same in a lot of ways. Except that he was Hulk Hogan Without Success. He wrestled like Hogan, if opponents didn't have to treat him like Hulk Hogan and crowds didn't react to his offense as if it were being delivered  by Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hogan Without Success would have been a really funny gimmick. A lot funnier than "The Predator". 

The Predator is a name that invokes the scariest unkillable cool alien presence when it's associated with Arnold's machine gun biceps and John McTiernan's late 80s action perfection dominance. The name "The Predator" invokes the worst possible other horrors when associated directly with pro wrestling, and the singular The implies that he is the worst of them. Begging and pleading with my dad to finally take me into the city to see a wrestling show and suddenly tasked with explaining to him why this man is Thee Predator, and me having no answer because The Predator was a House Show Exclusive over the Winter and Summer months of 1993 and I wouldn't have understood the negative connotations of the word Predator anyway. This would have been one of only three chances for me to see Horace Boulder live in the Bay Area, a fact I wouldn't have appreciated at the time. Imagine living in Colorado and getting to sit in attendance for a Velocity taping dark match of Horace Hogan & Bull Buchanan vs. Mark Henry & Mark Jindrak? God could you imagine. Also of note, in this match, Horace was shaped exactly the same as Gene Snitsky. Exact same build, size, and shape. 

2. Kamala vs. Kim Chee

MD: This show is full of stuff that I feel like we just never had on tape on any other house shows. Kamala was with Slick and didn't want to fight Kimchee at all. That let Kimchee get an early advantage until Kamala started to fight back. An errant Slick distraction allowed Kimchee to whack Kamala with something I couldn't make out given the VQ, but then he erred and went after Slick. Kamala chased him down, fought him off, and crushed him to the delight of the crowd. Post-match Slick put Kimchee's hat on Kamala, so that was fun. This was a lot of shtick in a very short period of time, but the crowd ate it up as well they should.

ER: I wonder if 1993 could be considered our best year of Steve Lombardi, in ring. I'm not sure this match would be the one for you to support that claim. In fact, it had to be a pretty great gig pulling lowest card heel duty against house show Kamala in 1993. You got to bullshit with the referee and fans for a couple of minutes, do some light cardio to get away from the former savage who you keep provoking, and then you settle in to sway your body in response to 1-3 Baba chops, stand still for the thrust kick, and run into the cross chop. Lombardi takes a really big bump over the top to the floor as Kamala exits him from the ring post match, and for something that is probably the most dangerous part of his day, he takes it in a way that would classify as a Memorable Royal Rumble Elimination on any given night. 

3. Terry Taylor vs. Typhoon

MD: Speaking of shtick, this was the second massive physical mismatch in a row and they leaned hard into it. 93 Taylor was, in some ways, at the height of his powers and this was an absolute stall fest. He was strutting, hiding in the ropes, threatening to walk to the back. Everyone in the crowd knew that if Typhoon got his hands on Taylor, he'd lift him up with an armbar or clamp on a headlock or run him over with a shoulder block. Taylor used the ref as cover to get in a throat shot and stayed on the throat until Typhoon started to fight up. Whereas, the crowd was very much behind Tatanka because they wanted to see him triumph, them clapping up Typhoon was more about seeing Taylor get his comeuppance. His cutoff went low instead of high however, and Typhoon even went up for an ill-advised belly to back for him. Taylor then went up and out on the cover attempt, stooging himself about fifteen feet on a kickout. Taylor hitting that suplex actually meant the transition spot of Typhoon reversing a standing vertical (and propelling Taylor across the ring again) was all the more effective though. Finish was Taylor getting some distance with an eyepoke only to leap off the second turnbuckle into a powerslam that was more of a Snow Plow as Typhoon didn't quite get him around. 

ER: 1993 might also be the best year of Terry Taylor, and it's hidden almost entirely on house shows. He has an out of nowhere great Raw match against Mr. Perfect in January and then after a couple more TV appearances he continued working months filling out house shows as the perfect version of himself: A heel Mark Harmon who rubbed people the wrong way with an insincere Nice Guy act. Aloof "Nice Guy" Terry Taylor is a persona that Taylor captures so well that it's one of those things clearly just already being answered by his shirt. I think I would love this match if it were just Terry airing any wrinkles out of his robe before handing it to a ringside attendant. Taylor plays this great fame of Avoid and Strut, never running from Typhoon but showing far too much confidence and acting like an idiot whenever caught. He starts a shoving match and storms the fuck out of the Coliseum, working with the kind of craft that makes 90s House Show Heel From The Territories look like the most fun job in the world. I would take Taylor's full extension slow bounce over from Typhoon's shoulderblock every damn day. Buddy Landel was never this good. 1993 Terry Taylor might be one of the greatest hidden years in wrestling. What looks like a contender for the best in-ring year of Taylor's career, happening in the biggest American company...but hidden almost entirely on house shows. 

Taylor convincingly kicks Typhoon's ass when he takes over. His punches are great, and he acts like a shithead in between every strike. But he also gets pressed through the ropes to the floor during a pin attempt and he makes the spot look as great as it can look, like a French Catch level of comedy and grace. He takes a high backdrop and yells when splatted by an avalanche. I loved the twist before the ending, where Typhoon was ramping up for the finish and Taylor shut it down with an eye poke. I actually got tricked into thinking they were icing things down for another minute or two, until I saw Terry climb to the top. Terry leaps right into a powerslam and then maybe the best part of his whole performance happens, as he just lies flattened and motionless for a hilariously long time, the entire time Typhoon was celebrating and shaking hands with fans after. When Taylor finally starts to stir, he continues making a 90s house show heel look like the most fun job in the whole world, going around the ring claiming that he got his shoulder up in time, before finally hopping to the floor and proceeding to injure his back, limping and openly grimacing, not hiding his pain from the laughter. Terry Taylor feels like a Top 5 guy in 1993 WWF, if we actually got to see more than a handful of matches.  

4. Doink vs. Bob Backlund

MD: I can't wait to read Eric's take on this one. That's true for the whole show, but especially this. It was, in my mind, exactly what you'd think a Backlund vs. Doink house show match would be. Just a perfect opening with Doink almost busting a lung falling over laughing at Backlund's handshake attempt followed by him hitting three measured takeovers before Backlund returned the favor with all three in quick succession. Beautiful stuff. They then took it straight to the mat just liked you want out of goofy Minnesotan wrestling machine and an evil clown, before switching over to extended holds and reversal attempts. When Backlund finally pried an arm away, he spent a good minute teasing a punch as the fans roared and the ref warned only to just go into an armbar instead; not just any, of course, as he made sure to wrench Doink up and over in the most painful manner possible. He just didn't punch him. That would have been unsportsmanlike. Not that he didn't keep teasing it. Doink, skilled harlequin that he was, turned Backlund over and started stretching him, going so far as to chucking him over the guardrail. Eventually Backlund came back and returned favor, hitting an atomic drop that sent Doink through the ropes. Both guys put absolutely everything they had into what they were doing. With Borne, it was what he had to do to get over. With Backlund, it was just who he was. Anyway, Doink was able to capitalize on being half out the ring to take out Backlund's eyes with something nefarious and he scored a quick, cheap pin. We're better off for having seen this.

ER: This is great. Historic even. It's a reason why handheld wrestling is the literal best wrestling. Handhelds capture moments that are manufactured for real people in the room that have a relaxed The Cameras Are Off vibe you would never see on TV. Doink/Backlund is a pairing that's remembered so fondly by those of us who remembered watching it as kids and seeing matwork and finding out what a fucking stump puller is. But there aren't actually that many Doink/Backlund matches, and the TV ones were under 5 minutes. This match was a different animal. This was a different animal because this was Doink working a Bob Backlund Madison Square Garden match. Bob Backlund was weird and awkward in 1993 WWF. He was like unfrozen territory babyface and it was like he had been in a Dead Zone coma for a decade and went right back to working 1983 territory wrestling babyface. And now he's doing it in Oakland, CA, which is hilarious to me. Bob Backlund is the whitest wrestler in history and here he is in Oakland, and it's the literal only time he's wrestled a match in Oakland. Doink is tasked with working a 20 minute match with a goofy 1980 white meat babyface in Oakland...and he succeeds by somehow working AS Bob Backlund. 

Doink the Clown works this match both as Doink, but also as 1980 Bob Backlund, were Backlund a heel and also wearing white grease paint to darken his complexion. Backlund also works as 1980 Backlund and Doink is his heel doppelgänger in the exact same style. This is a long form, mostly quiet match, that easily could have lost the crowd's attention at any point and yet they never did once. This crowd was invested in a recreation of a Bob Backlund/Buddy Rose match from a decade prior. Doink works slow strength spots and mugs whenever Backlund is unable to break the hold, Backlund works his long armbar while Doink takes big comical Backlund bumps. Doink bumps like a clown would bump, and it's perfect. When he finally makes the ropes after Backlund's armbar, Backlund pulls him back and Doink goes flying as if shot out of a cannon. Later he takes a big bump and lands right on his butt with his legs out, like a toddler learning to walk. When Backlund finally pulls off the big atomic drop, Doink springs forward through the ropes to the floor, all leading to him taking a weapon out of his jacket to jab Backlund with. Backlund gets the DQ win and literally runs through the crowd like a maniac, like a Bruiser Brody whose goal was to hurt zero people. 

5. Randy Savage vs. Yokozuna 

MD: This hit just right. Savage did the babyface version of the Taylor shtick to begin. He got on the mic just to go "Ohhh Yeahhh," which by 93 was probably more than enough. He spun around after Yoko started the sumo stomps. He got back on to start a USA chant. He was just late-era WWF Savage in the full body suit holding babyface court. The match itself was pretty straightforward. Yoko dominated with his size. He had these sort of downwards aimed punches that looked devastating. He tossed Savage out and slammed him into the rail. He dropped a leg on him. Savage would try to punch up but five or six punches equaled one of Yoko's. Finally Yoko missed a splash in the corner and Savage staggered him off the top rope before Fuji intervened with the flag, toppling him. Yoko hit a belly to belly for a quick pin. Post-match, he went for the Banzai Drop, missed, and got knocked out of the ring by Savage. There wasn't much to it. It didn't go wrong. They got as much value out of it as possible and I don't think the fans were at all disappointed for what they got.

ER: Matt pointed out that yes this is essentially babyface Terry Taylor vs. heel Typhoon (even though I don't think it's anywhere close to as good as our heel Taylor/face Typhoon match) although with less on the heel side and less on the face side. It's a lesser version of that, basically. Less. But also look how damn far Macho Man flew out of the ring when Yoko threw him to the floor! He didn't have to do that. He could have taken a much more sensible bump to the floor on a house show. I love how Savage punches to his feet, loved his punches to Yokozuna's face (and how Yoko would throw his head back for them) and I loved the way Savage crumpled when Yoko put him down with one return shot. I wish they had a couple extra beats before going right into the belly to belly finish, and I wish Savage had a piece of babyface offense that looked better than his top rope axe handle. It feels like a waste to go to the top rope and only come off with a weak axe handle that looks like spatchcocked hands. 

6. Tito Santana vs. Damien DeMento

MD: These two faced off twenty times between October 92 and the middle of 93. I would have sworn it was more. We have one of their PTW matches. DeMento more or did things right, but it didn't come off great. I'm not sure we needed another bit of early stalling after the Taylor match, even if he had the additional advantage of that special dissonance you get when a bigger guy does it with a smaller one. He took over by jamming Santana on a hip toss and hitting a clothesline. He cut him off with quick eye pokes (again dissonance). The grounded chinlock that made up a chunk of the heat worked in theory because you had someone as good as Santana fighting up out of it, but I'm not sure we needed to see it again this card. The finish was fine. Tito hit the flying forearm in the ropes. As a kid, I knew whenever he hit it and didn't get the win, which, after a certain chronological point was more often than not as his role shifted, he'd be losing. The shift to El Matador gave him El Pase de la Muerte, the shot to the back of the head, and that meant the ending of the match was more open to possibilities. Here though, DeMento landed on him on a suplex attempt back in. Maybe one too many heels going over in a row here? I probably would have liked this more in a bubble.

ER: I cans see Matt is setting me up here to be the Damien DeMento Guy, and maybe that guy is me. I am certainly more of a fan of DeMento's now than I ever have been from 1993-2021. What an odd guy to have basically existed in wrestling for only one year, the kind of guy with minimal ring experience who never would have been hired for this role in any other era. To hear DeMento tell his story, his "I had no experience but I trained with Johnny Rodz and then I worked worked 140 matches in 11 months in WWF and then retired" would sound like a whopper of a lie. "So yeah, there I was working Madison Square Garden with only 40 or so matches under my belt..." yeah sure okay bud. I don't know if DeMento was actually good, but he is a weirdo who came out of nowhere to work a full WWF schedule for a year and then returned to Pennsylvania and that's it, and that's cool. I love the energy he puts behind missed clotheslines, and his short lariat after blocking a hiptoss looked real good. I was impressed with his positioning near the ropes after taking Santana's flying forearm, and his dedication to making it look like he actually grabbed the top rope on his way back in the ring to shift his weight onto Santana. 

7. Steiner Brothers vs. Beverly Brothers 

MD: Unsurprisingly, this was very enjoyable. Here, the shtick worked on so many levels. Beau and Blake put so much energy and enthusiasm and verve into it. They'd try to buddy up with the ref, would hide behind a security guard, would bob in and out between the ropes at high speed. And with 2024 eyes, the anticipation was all about the huge bumps you know that they - the only guys willing to face the Steiners - would be taking. They were working so big that it wasn't even about the people in the last row seeing them; it was on the hope that Verne would see them all the way from Minnesota. And the Steiners obliged, dropping them on their skull for belly to belly suplexes, power slams, and of course the Frankensteiner at the end. Meanwhile, they really kept it moving. The Steiners were constantly fighting from underneath and often retaking the offense only for the Beverlys to have to go underhanded to stay in it and take back control. 

I get that in the years following this, Scott would become more and more listless in his matches and I would even say here that he wasn't necessarily working the crowd or working for the crowd, but he was entirely engaged with what his opponents were doing. You never got the sense that he wasn't trying to fight back, that he wasn't affected and incensed by everything that was happening to him, that he wasn't desperate to get revenge and to make it over to his brother for a tag. He was just laser focused on the Beverlys as opposed to channeling the crowd. It gave everything a more athletic, organic feel, and, after the hot tag, a more chaotic one with bodies flying around and timing perhaps being just a little bit off. It worked for the crowd, however, and it worked for me three decades later.

ER: I love the Beverlys/Steiners as a match. Their 1993 Rumble match might be the WWF MOTY, and Enos/Bloom should be in the discussion for Greatest Steiner Opponents. Enos and Bloom are big guys who bump huge for the Steiners, but in a way that makes it clear that these big bumps are being done by big guys. Mike Enos getting crazy height on a backdrop looked even crazier because it looked like a big man getting tossed up that high. But this is a gem because it's a Steiners/Beverlys match that we would never see on TV. Only on house shows do you get to see Scotty as face in peril, a match constructed much more around Beverlys cut off spots instead of Beverly bumps (those are still saved for the end). Mike Enos was always the praised member of the Beverlys, but Bloom is the one who shines brighter in a house show environment. He's the more expressive heel, the one better at drawing heat, the one better at arguing with the ref, the one who even goes and draws sympathy from a security guard in the aisle, and he also has better punches and stomps. The eventual hot tag was explosive and quick, the real time for Enos to shine. It's incredible to me that this is just the way Mike Enos took the frankensteiner. He wasn't just getting vertically spiked on PPV, he was doing it in front of a few thousand people, working towards that one dad in the crowd with a camcorder. Mike Enos taking the frankensteiner is one of our Great Bumps, a Minnesotan man in mustache and mullet and middle age spread doing the most complicated breakdancing head slide. It's incredible. How did the Beverlys never get a Hasbro? Enos should have had one with neck breaking action. 

8. Crush vs. Shawn Michaels

MD: Not entirely sure how to tackle this one. First and foremost, Sherri was at ringside as a "neutral observer" or some such. She unsurprisingly had the best offense in the match when she got to lay it in on Shawn. She was also really effective in the finish as Shawn was stalking her and she tripped over the ring steps backwards. It was generally a different match when she was involved, more visceral, more gripping. If I had never seen Michaels before, this would be my take: when he took offense early, he was bumping and stooging over the ring, but there was almost too much energy to him. It wasn't focused and channeled the way the Beverly's managed to do it. It felt much more like a guy playing a role. It was easy for him to be press slammed and otherwise tossed around by Crush and he went over the top for it when it was so inherently evident that maybe he didn't have to and it ended up subtracting from the overall effect. When he was on top, however, likely due to the fact that Crush was so much bigger and the effort did need to go into it, he was dogged and persistent and unyielding and his stuff ended up looking really good; it had to in order to be credible. He had no choice. Him putting the extra effort in there paid off whereas in the early stages, when he was stooging, it distracted. And there was nothing more real in the entire match than Michaels, irate, snatching the title belt and smashing Crush over the head to draw the DQ as he tried to check on Sherri. Nine times out of ten, a DQ like that would feel like them searching for a way out of the match. Here, it felt like an act of heated passion in the moment. 

ER: I love that there is one woman captured on camera who is fully into Shawn's entire routine, unafraid to publicly like what she likes. Crush is announced at 257 which must mean Crush was working a heel Buddy Rose act. 1993 was really the peak pro wrestling year for the fried fluffed out mullet, and appropriately we get a large portion of the match built around  the potential pulling and tugging of fluffy split end Rod Beck mullets. After Michaels complains immediately about a hair pull, they spend the next couple minutes with Crush holding him in a side headlock while Michaels' hand keeps drifting up towards that flowing cotton candy, the ref stopping his hand 2-3 dozen times on every side of the ring. Michaels going up for Crush's press slam is an awesome spot. Both men make it look so effortless, with the 257 lb. Crush walking Michaels and holding him up to a couple sides, more and more people getting to their feet the longer Crush has him up, dying to see Michaels thrown into the sun. I liked how Michaels' big bump to the floor focused more on the speed of getting there rather than something showy and athletic. The way he spilled made it look like a man who wasn't fully in control of the landing, even though he was. His selling for Sherri's slaps and kicks was excellent, like a man getting up from his blanket after one too many hornets makes his picnic an impossibility. 

Read more!

An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 1

I started reviewing Royal Rumble 1993 and thought it would be a quick little thing, but sometimes projects spiral and the words flow more than they should, and I was left with a behemoth of a show review. Part 1 comes today, Part 2 comes tomorrow: 

Beverly Brothers vs. The Steiner Brothers

When you see a Steiners/Beverlys match on paper, this is the match you hope it's going to be. It's 10 minutes and an excellent Beverlys performance. These guys all work snug, we get a great stretch of the Beverlys isolating Scott, and we build to Enos and Bloom betting annihilated on a Rick hot tag. Bloom and Enos are pure wrestling joy, mixing a cheapshit house style with the insane bumps and highspots of a big PPV tag. Bloom complains about hair and tight pulls after every huge biel and takedown he takes from Scott, but has no problem turning on a dime to whip Scott to the mat and then rock him with a gorgeous long uppercut when he gets to his feet. But Enos is so good on the apron while Bloom is doing his thing, and the match really gives us a look at how complementary they were as a team, not just their in-ring style but their personalities. Bloom was like the prep school shit with rich parents and no consequences, and Enos is his slightly less rich dumb jock friend. It's a great energy. 

When Enos tags in he does some incredible dumb jock stuff, shoving Rick on the apron one hand to the chest like a real idiot, and then running away! In a great moment that would get a huge reaction on any show, Rick tags in and immediately knocks Bloom off the apron as he jogs by. But just like Bloom, even as Enos is getting punked by Rick, he also gives it back big. Enos and Rick have some great stuff together, great timing. They really nail this one stretch where Enos hits this great high rotation powerslam, cuts low on a clothesline and really tries to take Rick's legs out with a dropdown, does a great leapfrog...but of course gets caught mid-air by Rick and dumped. Enos was something else in this one. He took some of the most dangerous bumps in WWF PPV history, just a crazy willingness to lean all the way into STEINER BROTHERS OFFENSE. He gets thrown by Scott with an overhead belly to belly that almost plants him squarely on the top of his head (and close enough that Gorilla and Heenan go momentarily silent), but this match is so good because Bloom runs right in and just WASTES Scott with a lariat. These teams are laying in and this match should really be talked about as one of the upper tier WWF tags of the decade. 

The Beverlys are really good at cutting Scott off from Rick, dropping backbreakers and ax handles and Bloom elbowdrops, quick tags, hard elbows, Enos choking Scott with the tag rope, all of it the kind of shit you want to see them doing to Scott Steiner. The crowd noise builds perfectly through all of it because these Sacramento fans know that Rick is going to blow this ring up, and there is a fantastic late cut off of a Scott tag attempt that quiets the crowd down so damn quick, just perfectly timed by Bloom. After the hot tag was denied, Heenan has a hilarious bit about how Rick didn't actually want the tag because he's "a known coward". Heenan had this great ongoing thing where he would matter of factly call someone a coward as if it's a thing everyone knows, and Gorilla reacts to it every single time, and I laugh my ass off every single time. 

The Rick hot tag is as good as expected, and Mike Enos really went through one of the most insane wrestling minutes I've seen. Enos takes a backdrop bump as high as any Rick Rude backdrop, then takes arguably the most disgusting German suplex in WWF history. The match's one flaw just might be that Enos is picked up for the next spot almost immediately by Rick, not giving *that* German suplex any time to settle in. If I saw a man the size of Enos take that suplex bump live, a match stoppage would have seemed appropriate. It's a crazy spot that - once they saw Enos was moving of his own accord - they should have shown a dozen times from every angle. The finish stretch is crazy, with Bloom wiping out on an awesome missed top rope clothesline and a great Scott victory roll for a near win. But Enos takes his legendary performance somehow one step further, and takes the match finishing Frankensteiner better than any man has ever taken the Frankensteiner. Enos goes vertical on it, sticking the landing in a way that made people immediately leap up, as if he hadn't just been thrown for the most disgusting suplex a minute earlier. Mike Enos is a goddamn lunatic and I genuinely don't know what 90s WWF tag matches you can genuinely put over this one. Total classic. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: It's unfortunate, but Marty Jannetty's ring gear has to be the worst ring gear in my time as a wrestling fan. Right? I don't know. There are other, good contenders. Maybe it isn't actually the worst. But, if not the worst, then at minimum I can say that there has never been any other wrestling gear that makes me feel the vicarious embarrassment that Marty Jannetty's 1993 Royal Rumble gear makes me feel. Sure, maybe that's hypocritical of me, seeing as how I lose my mind any time a wrestler shows up covered in tassels. When Jerry Estrada takes that bump over the top and his ocean waves of tassel crash into the shore as his body crashes into the concrete, I'm in wrestling heaven. Marty Jannetty just takes it too far. Maybe that's a good thing. Marty Jannetty may have established a Tassel Barrier in this match, and that's an important thing. It's good to know how far we as humans can, or should, go. And Marty established that we should not go here. 

Marty's gear looks like a child tried to make their own Tron suit out of torn toilet paper. If you pause the screen at the right moments, his ring entrance looks like Max Moon being drawn into A-Ha's "Take On Me" video. It is a hideous ensemble, and I thought it was hideous before I realized it's a two piece. Who crafted this entrance-attire-only blouse? Who crafted this blouse that looks like the most toilet-papered tree on Halloween? Can you imagine Marty Jannetty trying on his new gear in a small tailor's shop, analyzing all the angles in a full frame trifold vanity mirror, while a slender hunched old Italian man marks his hems with chalk? Well, turns that trifold mirror was cursed, and that mirror cursed Jannetty for the rest of his career. If you ever wondered why Marty Jannetty shows up in 1998 WCW looking like Enuff Z'Nuff's rhythm guitarist, lost and scared in a strange new grunge world, that's why. That mirror is why.

The match itself is weird. It has an excellent layout which gets the crowd downright rabid for the finishing stretch, but it's also filled with weak offense and stunt bumping that doesn't correlate to that weak offense. Michaels pinballs for every single punch Jannetty throws, and they are ridiculous bumps for what Jannetty is putting out there. Michaels gets bumped to the floor off a kneelift and Jannetty hits a tope that winds up looking like a couple trying to hold each other up at the skating rink before both slip and fall. But things get downright silly when Jannetty hits a flying punch off the top to the floor, and Michaels does a triple salchow to sell it. Now, I love a good flying fist or an absurd fistdrop, but there comes a tipping point where it probably makes a lot more sense to use your body to attack an opponent than just your fist. Marty's entire body crashes and burns off to the side while his fist grazes past Michaels' hair, and Michaels spins to the mat like Bear Hugger. A crossbody block would have lead to a safer bump for both AND would have read much better to the crowd, but wrestler offense is a funny thing. This is not as bad as that piece of Marufuji offense where he would tap his opponents' head into the top turnbuckle while hurling his own body out over the ringpost to the floor - as if Mitch Williams had not just fallen off the mound after a delivery but also continued rolling and tumbling all the way to the dugout - but it was incredibly stupid. So of course Marty does it again and Michaels punches him out of the air. Now, don't get me wrong, if some lunatic did a fistdrop off the top rope to the floor I would praise them as a wrestling offense god, in the same way I will always flip out seeing El Samurai or Makoto Hashi doing diving headbutts off the top to the floor. So now, not only are my takes on tassels hypocritical, I am also a hypocrite about what offense I enjoy and what level of stupidity I expect and demand out of it. Perhaps there's a boomerang effect where a fistdrop can keep getting more and more complicated until it gets very stupid, before becoming incredible again: 

1. Any kind of fistdrop from a standing position falling onto your opponent = Great

2. Fistdrop leaping off the middle turnbuckle = Outstanding

3. Fistdrop leaping off the top rope into the ring = Seems unnecessarily risky to your knees but fuck yeah

4. Fistdrop off the top rope to a standing opponent on the floor = You fucking idiot

5. Fistdrop off the top rope to the floor while opponent is on his back = You goddamn genius

The stretch of Michaels working over Marty's arm is satisfying (including a rough posting), but even all of that just builds to another stupid spot, which is Michaels coming off the middle rope and landing, standing, face first into Jannetty's boot, with no indication of what kind of move he would have hit had Marty not gotten that boot up. See, the twists and turns and momentum shifts all happen at the exact right place, except half (or more?) of the offense looks like incomprehensible bullshit. It's a cool exercise in seeing how fired up a crowd can get when you're hitting all of the turns of a match this well, that you can really give them any slop offense and - as long as you're shifting momentum at the right time - they will be right there screaming. 

When people remember this as a great match (Meltzer gave it 4 stars, and if Jungle Boy and Rocky Romero worked this note for note exact same match with dog ball's worse offense, it's impossible to see him going less than 4 stars on it), they remember it from the moment Sherri slaps Shawn thru the series of close pinfalls. When Sherri slaps Shawn the ARCO Arena explodes, and Shawn does his best selling of the match. When Marty drags him back in Michaels immediately takes his craziest/best bump of the match, taking the HHH backwards corner bump faster than anyone should ever take that bump, and Marty drags him back in again. The crowd really thought they were seeing a title change, so every single nearfall plays huge, deservedly so. Shawn missing a superkick only to get put down hard by a Marty superkick really did feel like the finish, possibly because it was the only bump Michaels took that wasn't in three parts, just put him down on the mat. The shenanigans at the finish play out too quickly and a bit too ham-fisted, with Shawn throwing a wide elbow on a punch to take out the ref, and Sherri accidentally hitting Marty with her heel. Shawn hits a superkick, Marty takes a ridiculous flip bump that felt mostly disconnected from the kick, and that's it. It's a great match with an incredible amount of flaws: some of the most detached bumps and goofball offense choices, and yet a match that earned the big crowd reactions. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. The Big Boss Man

ER: This is a great three match series to start a PPV with, a great hour of pro wrestling, with three very different matches. The is a match that of course I was excited for, two of the biggest coolest shaped guys at some real in-ring peaks. 1993 was a great in-ring year for both of these guys, Bigelow an adventurous big man with a big gas tank, and Boss Man hitting a legendary peak with his post-WWF All Japan tours. 1993 Boss Man was the best combination of size and speed, slimmed way down from his 1989 biggest, but much bigger than his 1998 WWF return. 1993 was when Boss Man was shaped exactly like his Hasbro figure. Bam Bam Bigelow has the best shape in wrestling and Boss Man has night stick work that makes him look like a cool gigantic American King of Fighters character. They move fast and they hit hard, basking in the salad days of big fat men. 

There's a ton of movement and it always leads to a big crash, and a lot of this is worked at a super crazy pace for two guys this size to keep. There's fast rope running and fast spots, like Bigelow lifting Boss Man up for a huge back suplex, but then faceplanting hard on a missed falling headbutt when Boss Man sits up right after. Bam Bam has really high impact avalanches and starts the match story early when he starts throwing shots at Boss Man's back, with a fist to the back knocking Boss Man forward through the ropes. Right before them, Jannetty and Michaels thought of the bump they were going to do and then kept doing it regardless of the offense, but Bigelow and Boss Man really knock each other down and fall in some big ways. Bigelow drops Boss Man with a huge hot shot that looks like Boss Man is going to go crashing right into the camera; Boss Man has this great high speed clotheslines to knockdown Bigelow, and then at least 25 different punches to knock him around to different parts of the ring. Boss Man was a great puncher who isn't talked about enough as a great puncher. He has great uppercuts, great aim (he can pick a target on the chin and not show light), and can throw them close or long range. He slides to the floor for a big right hand, gives the fans a corner 10 count, throws hard mounted punches, all great. 

But it's not enough to work great through the fast paced sections, you also have to time out the cool down sections so the fast sections peak, and they do that really well. It's a great transition because it happens with a spectacular spot: Boss Man missing a charge and taking a fast, impressive bump to the floor, appearing to smash his back on the edge of the ring apron on the way down. Commentary picks up on it the second it happens and Bigelow immediately moves to focus entirely on Boss Man's back, as if everyone knew Boss Man was going to take a sick bump back first off the apron. Bigelow works the back with some real effective stuff, grabbing an awesome reverse waistlock bearhug and throwing headbutts to grind Boss Man down. Boss Man's comeback has some nice detail work, with a great spot where he is able to pull off a vertical suplex, but it's a messier suplex that wasn't as effective due to his back being weakened, so Bigelow beats him to his feet. It's such a great thread to put into a match: working a Too Convincing back injury on a suitably dangerous looking spot, like Chris Hamrick setting up knee work by violently tangling his knee in the ropes. The only weak point of the match is that it wraps up a little too easily and suddenly, the match almost disappointing by coming to its logical conclusion: Bigelow weakening Boss Man enough to slam him and hit the diving headbutt. It's where everything was heading, Boss Man was getting weaker, and then Bigelow put him down. I think one more Boss Man nearfall hope spot could have put this on a much higher level, but this was a great 10 minutes.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

Read more!

WWF Handheld Reno, NV 1/23/93

Running a 2,000 attendance house in a 12,000 capacity arena just a day before the Royal Rumble, this show had a couple unique matches I wanted to see and a nice snowy winter season happening outside. 

1/23/93 Full Show

The Predator vs. Jim Powers

ER: God bless early 90s camcorder dads who knew how short the battery life on their camcorders were, yet always overextended themselves thinking they could afford to record Jim Powers working Tony Garea tribute matches and still have enough battery for the main event. Memories of every plug of the school gymnasium being hogged by dad's charging their extra batteries. Predator is Horace Boulder under a mask, and it's really funny to me to have a guy named PREDATOR but have him working a lot of pointing at his head after dodged charges or complaining about Powers pulling the tights. Predator seems like a risky gimmick to assign someone in wrestling, but it also makes me laugh thinking about the Predator pointing at his head in the jungle right before Arnold sneaks up behind him with a schoolboy. Predator was the only one keeping this match interesting as Powers is all bad punches and arm wringers. There was a nice spot where Predator blocked a sunset flip and then punched the mat going after Powers, and I like  a guy who pulls his opponent face first into the turnbuckles by grabbing the waistband of his trunks. Predator does an admirable job selling Powers' punch and kneelift to set up his match finishing powerslam, and we collectively thank this camcorder dad for editing out a long Predator chinlock where Powers' abdomen was desperately heaving. 

Samu vs. Owen Hart

ER: This was a better version of the Powers/Predator match in half the time, with our undaunted director also opting to trim out Samu's chinlock. WWF loves having a babyface make their comeback after being held in a chinlock, and this man recognized what he should and shouldn't be filming. Here Owen gets that sunset flip that Jim Powers couldn't turn, but it only gets a one count and Samu hits him with a thrust kick after. There's a fun stretch where it felt like Owen could pull it off, after hitting a nice spinning heel kick and then knocking Fatu off the apron. I thought he was going to put Samu away with a missile dropkick, but Fatu snuck up and knocked Owen balls first into the top turnbuckle, Samu putting him away with a follow-up superplex. After the match, Owen continues selling his balls in the ring long after the Headshrinkers have left, even explaining to the ref what happened from his back. Owen makes the Vader V with his right hand and then uses the edge of his left hand to chop at that V, explaining what the top turnbuckle did to his balls. The ref nods understandingly before exiting the ring. 

Yokozuna vs. Earthquake

ER: This showdown would have looked insane to my 12 year old eyes, a clash of the two (probably) largest men I had ever seen. Little could anyone in attendance have known how rare this match was going to be. Their sumo match on Raw over a year later was their only televised match, and other than that they had only a few scattered house show matches, many of them in California. Seems cruel to present an Earthquake as a babyface in California but that's what they do. This was great in its too brief existence. We get some good shoving to start, Earthquake showing off his footwork to dodge Yokozuna's shoves, running into Yokozuna with shoulderblocks that make both take a step back. Yokozuna takes over with a back elbow to counter an Earthquake avalanche, and runs over Earthquake like it's nothing. Maybe I just get dewy-eyed and sappy during a wrestling match between two gigantic fat guys, but I tell you the air went out of the crowd when Earthquake took that back bump. Yokozuna dropped a gorgeous legdrop and Earthquake did a full body spasm like he had just been decapitated, and I was shocked at how quickly and easily Yokozuna put things away with the banzai splash. This match felt big enough to be a PPV attraction and get 12 minutes. But some things can only be contained in short starbursts. This was only their second match, and all 3 of these minutes were great. But it's a shame that we never got to see them have an actual war of the colossus.

The Beverly Brothers vs. The Undertaker

ER: This was advertised on the arena sign as Undertaker vs. Papa Shango, so I guess they felt like since they blatantly false advertised one of the two matches they announced for this show, the best way to pay that back was by just having three minutes of Undertaker laying waste. The great twist, is that I think this 3 minute sprint is more entertaining than any Undertaker/Soul Taker match I can remember. Undertaker vs. Papa Shango doesn't play as big as it should, but this handicap match was like a T-Rex vs. two velociraptors. But, well, two dumb jock velociraptors. This looked like it was going to be a one-sided mauling, both Beverlys getting run over by Undertaker for a minute straight after cheapshotting him before the bell. Bloom and Enos are both great bumpers, and they play this match like they were Kaientai, and it was the best. They get some brief control, when Bloom hits Taker with a chair and Enos snaps his neck over the top rope. The crowd reactions for Taker's deadman sit-ups keep getting louder, and the Beverlys act more and more annoying the longer they're in control. Undertaker has a fun time with the whole thing, and it looked like he was doing his own separate bit at ringside as he kept stumbling and falling into Mike McGuirk. Beverlys hit a bunch of elbowdrops after hitting a tandem vertical suplex, but leave their backs turned for far too long around a man known for rising from the dead, and the Reno kids lost it when he sat up again and ran wild. Enos takes a huge cartwheeling bump over the top to the floor to sell an uppercut, Bloom gets finished in ring by the Tombstone.

Berzerker vs. Bob Backlund

ER: Berzerker is a great house show act, as he works with the crowd and does unique bits more than any other wrestler from this era, even more than Flair. Here he barks ar Backlund and starts whipping at him with the belt from his tunic while Backlund is folding his ring jacket, that belt coming closer and closer with each whip. The crowd reacts with some real hostility to this one, the Reno crowd booing Backlund's dorkiness at the bell and only mildly getting behind him when he swept Berzerker's leg into Berzerker doing the splits. Berzerker getting his leg swept or kicked into doing the splits is the kind of spot that should get a big reaction every time, but this is a weird pairing and the crowd didn't seem to like it. It's funny when Berzerker rolls out of the ring and is out of camera sight, but you can hear him Hussing around ringside at people. They take a long time to lock up, with Berzerker repeatedly challenging Backlund to reach up and grab his right hand way up in the air, and Backlund responding with trepidation. 

The crowd seems annoyed that the match isn't starting at first, and then Berzerker keeps milking the annoyed reaction to build more and more heat, until the crowd is loudly mocking Berzerker with Huss chants and he is doing back bumps out of frustration. Berzerker finally does get that knucklelock and forces Backlund to his knees, and Backlund valiantly fights to his feet before rolling through to his own top wristlock, which Berzerker breaks with his fist. It's like they're working a Jack Brisco/Killer Khan match straight out of 1979, and that, while simple at times, mostly works. Berzerker eventually takes one of his big backwards bumps to the floor and then marches angrily down the aisle, drawing heat the whole way. In ring he hits a couple of bodyslams and jaws at fans, and works a long (probably too long) bearhug which eventually ends with Backlund somewhat lamely just falling on Berzerker for the pin. A fan either near the camera or holding the camera thinks aloud that this was one of the worst matches he has ever seen. This was not a classic, and was somehow the second longest match on the show, but it did have its rewards.  

Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: This was a real crowd pleaser, the kind of strong 15 minute match that you'd want to see if you were excited to see either of these two, checking off all the greatest hit Flair boxes without ever feeling like it was coasting. Flair is a guy who can play the greatest hits and not feel like he's bored with them and can still throw in a couple surprises with a smile. It's cool seeing how big he can work a house show match, taking some painful high bumps (on a hard ring) while working toward specific sides of the crowd. He's a guy who is excellent at causing a stir in a specific section of the building, knows how to pick fights with people from the ring, and knows how to get great heat for 15 minutes. He does all his shtick and does it get: He shoves Perfect a couple times and gets slapped each time, he takes a long walk down the aisle after eating a shoulderblock, he gets caught going up top and takes a hard bump getting press slammed down, obviously he's going to take a high backdrop. 

When he's on offense he's cheating, and it gets a rise the entire time. I'm gonna give the cameraman credit for partially obscuring the lens when Flair threw a low kick and eye poke, as if he was helping Flair cheat to transition. Flair worked over Perfect's arm and held a grounded headlock while planking his legs on the middle rope. He does the full routine on two sides of the ring, and the spot our cameraman picked couldn't have framed it any better. Flair was practically working this entire routine for this guy. Flair really rubs his cheating in to our side of the ring, at one point holding just one straightened leg on the ropes while bicycling his free leg. We also get a perfectly framed shot of Flair holding his calf over Perfect's throat, like Flair was putting on a show especially for us. The finish stretch is great, with stiff chops from both, Flair getting his trunks yanked down for a good sunset flip nearfall, and then keeping them down to the glee of the crowd when he ducks his way right into a Perfect Plex. Classic house show stuff, 100% success rate. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: Shawn gets announced first and does a great job getting heat just by taking off his chaps. He also tries to grab Mike McGuirk a couple times and it gets people upset because he looks like a guy who would definitely try to grab a woman. Marty is wearing fantastic turquoise and zebra tights with perfect tassels, honestly some of his best gear. A stark, damning contrast to the atrocities he would would inflict upon the Royal Rumble crowd the next night. This match had the finish stretch of that next night's match but was pretty different overall, and probably even better. There's a long Michaels abdominal stretch spot that has an excellent first act but then probably carries on a bit too long in the second act before rushing through the third. You can usually wrap up your abdominal stretch spot in one act, but it was still a great hammy Michaels performance. The best kind of hammy Michaels is house show shithead Michaels, where he's shaking his ass at the crowd and giving people in the front row cocky asshole smirks, and those abdominal stretches give him plenty of time to rub some specific fans' noses in it. Michaels goes into control really quick in this match (he skipped and floundered around the ring for a lot of okay Marty offense the next night), sending Jannetty frisbeeing into the ringpost. 

He works over Marty's arm with hammerlocks and strikes, and once he's worked over the arm enough he starts working over Marty's midsection. I love when a heel switches targets after suitably damaging one area. There's a great spot where he drops Jannetty stomach first over a chair on the outside, which at least gives us good reason to work that abdominal stretch for so long. The great first act on that stretch that I mentioned earlier, is Michaels locking it in near the ropes (for cheating purposes) and a nice build to Marty hip tossing his way out of it. But right as Marty gets there, Shawn holds onto the tope rope to block, and the blocked toss re-injures Marty's arm. GREAT spot. The finish stretch has a lot of similarities to the PPV match the next night, working out the timing for a couple of spots: Jannetty catching Michaels with a DDT after Michaels thought he got out of the way of a fistdrop, and Michaels missing a superkick only to be nailed with one for a close 2. If anything, Earl Hebner was really rushing counts, which didn't give a lot of time for the nearfalls to settle in, but added a manic feel that the crowd did respond to. Since Sherri wasn't here, the finish was different, simple, and well done. Michaels gets thrown into the buckles and slumps into them, but ducks out of the way of a great Jannetty missed avalanche and then scrambles onto him for a quick pin. He shoots a quick Fuck Yeah glance at a person at ringside he'd been taunting the whole match, and BAM, Shawn Michaels has left the building. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

Read more!

1992 WWF Boy Scout Troop 3 Fundraiser 1/18/92

Full Show


ER: If you like the sound of a wrestling show where the wrestling is treated with as much value as the day itself, and don't mind 50% of the tape being taken up by non-wrestling, then I invite you to settle on in. This here's a recently unearthed WWF fancam of a show many of us didn't realize even happened, filmed by any old dad as more of a memorable church picnic than as a man filming a pro wrestling show. When my dad got a video camera in 1988 (the kind where the VHS tape slid into the camera itself), he quickly produced half a dozen tapes that were filled entirely with him recording the yard, doing commentary about how the yard looked, filming my toddler sister following a frog, just a grill dad enjoying his new toy while acting out his inner Terence Malick. I still know where tapes of our old Easter egg hunts and 4th of July parties exist at my folks' house, even if they haven't had a VCR to play them on in at least 15 years. This show is the closest to the vibes of those home movies than any wrestling fancam I have ever experienced.

The man who recorded this, is a man recording this event the way my dad recorded every event of our lives over a period of several years. This is not a man recording a pro wrestling show, this is a man recording his niece's wedding, his son's little league game, his daughter's school play; this tape would exist no matter what the event was. If the fundraiser had been a chili cookoff, there would be a tape of Boy Scouts Chili Cookoff and we would likely not be writing about it. But this is a WWF Boy Scouts fundraising show, and this man - I presume - is affiliated somehow with this specific Shelton, CT branch of the Boy Scouts.

Growing up, we used to have a big Harvest Festival every year with all of the 7th Day Adventist churches in our county, held in the gymnasium of a local high school. This wrestling fancam is the exact movie of my dad filming us and several other families and students on a Saturday morning, setting up for the Harvest Festival and decorating a gymnasium. This man is not worried about saving tape space for the matches, he is more concerned with documenting the entire experience, and we're lucky for it.

One of the early joys, is that it's never actually even apparent that any attendees enjoy interacting with our cameraman even in the slightest. Most in attendance don't even act as if they know who he is, let alone act socially familiar with him. But HE feels familiar to these people, and nobody appears to be startled by his presence, so we can assume he's at minimum welcome and/or tolerated. Also, among the 80 or so volunteers in the building, he is the one guy just walking around with a camera and not doing any kind of set up or physical work, so "tolerated" is probably a more believable stance.

Letting yourself get taken in by these home movies, you really appreciate the well oiled machine that is the volunteer staff of Scouts and family of Scouts, as we get to see the ins and outs of what's happening at Shelton High School on a winter Saturday. Our Connecticut Attenborough helps paint the mise en scene by mostly letting the camera do the talking, outside of segment-introducing observations such as "Lots of chairs to be set up" or "Here's another popcorn machine being set up, down at the end of this hall" or "Still setting up these chairs, 600 of them" or "Mopping the floor" or "Taking a break from setting up all these chairs?" or "Gonna sell a lotta merch tonight?" or "Hey how many chairs did you bring in the truck?" The candid interviews aren't particularly insightful, and he is not a very probing interviewer. These interviews do give us some insight into a truck that broke down that was carrying a lot of chairs, and we get some unblemished brief backstage footage that gave us more of a look behind the scenes than any "matches only" fancams have ever bothered with.

Not only do we get to see the catering spread for the wrestlers (literally just a half dozen 6 foot long party subs from Subway), but we get the Bushwhackers signing autographs for all the nerdy adorable Scouts, and what appears to be one specific family meeting the incredibly jacked Chris Walker. One of the Double Trouble members is also there milling about, and we get to see anti-drug PSAs from Virgil and Sgt. Slaughter. It's kind of amazing that this guy was allowed to film Virgil as he took several re-dos on his not great Say No promo. Slaughter cuts his with ease, salutes a local LEO ("from one Sgt. to another"), and then points directly at our camera as we fade into a packed gymnasium. Our ring announcer (who as we saw was there 3 hours early and showed up wearing a great brown leather jacket) is now in a suit looking like the coolest possible Perd Hapley, and announces that due to illness, Bret Hart would not be facing The Mountie tonight. Hart had lost the IC title to Mountie literally the night before, but the crowd is justifiably excited to find out that Roddy Piper would be replacing Hart in that IC title match.

MD: I can't add much more to what Eric's written here about the non-match footage but I will note a few things: First, I was pretty much the target age here. This was January 92. I was 10 years old. I'd watched WWF for less than two years at that point, getting into it late. I'm from the Northeast. I also had some small experiences backstage due to a friend's uncle working for Titan in some capacity. That consisted of meeting Bret backstage after his match with Barbarian in the underdwelling hallways of the Boston Garden, and then, two years later (Survivor Series 93), having a photo shoot opportunity with the Smoking Gunns and getting a free shirt. I can say that the company changed incredibly in those two years when it came to that sort of thing. This is right in the middle.

I was absolutely terrified of meeting the Bushwhackers as a kid, because I didn't want to get licked by them. This was a completely irrational but very, very real fear of mine, especially as I wandered into these backstage scenarios. I wasn't a germaphobe, but I guess I had some texture issues, and the idea of it was literally terrifying to me. They scared me as much as anyone this side of Papa Shango, what with the sardines and the missing teeth. Obviously, they're absolutely great with the kids here, even if they do lick one. Sarge has it down to a science (I caught him at a signing when I was in college and while it was a conveyor belt, he'd still find a way to engage with anyone who engaged with him). You could tell how much value he still had to the company in a show like this. It was also nice to see Sherri interacting with people, though obviously not getting mobbed like Slaughter. What really stands out though, what I will remember forever, is Virgil being completely unable to hit the "Don't do drugs" speech. I always wondered why he never got pushed more; Repo Man helps Dibiase gets the $$$ belt back a little before this and he just tumbles down the card. His liberation from Dibiase was such a huge storyline in 91 and he was legitimately over with the crowd (and he'd become surprisingly engaging destroying jobbers by the end of 92), but seeing this promo attempt makes it all make more sense.


British Bulldog vs. The Barbarian

MD: While we have a thousand Bulldog vs. Warlord matches, this is a more novel pairing. Unfortunately, we don't get much of it.

ER: We get about 90 seconds of this, nothing close to a finish, but mostly a mid match test of strength, a nice Bulldog bump to the floor, and a Barbarian clubbing forearm. But our cameraman shows a strong knack for recording wrestling, knows when to follow the action and knows when to zoom in on holds. That's a good sign. This brief glimpse of a match segues immediately into...


Beverly Brothers vs. The Bushwhackers

ER: In which Luke is biting Blake's rump, and I believe that is the start of the match. The first two minutes of this is so great, the Beverlys bumping all over for shoulderblocks and clotheslines, both taking pratfalls over the top to the floor, all leading to them smoothly transitioning to a classic cut off the ring tag match. The Beverlys look like they're having so much fun, the perfect heel team for a house show like this, the kind of time that makes a gym echo with high pitched little kid anger. Luke is just about the worst person ever at putting over offense, never falling right, barely regarding punches, but it doesn't faze Blake and Beau. Blake is dropping elbows and we get a nice cut off spot where Blake drops a falling lariat on Luke, and when we get to the Butch hot tag we get another run of big flipping Beverly bumps, with Beau bumping to the floor off a battering ram. Blake is making Butch lariats look far more powerful than they should be, and Beau expertly hooks Butch's leg from the floor, really upending him for the finish. Beverlys continue to soak up the hate on their victorious walk to the back, with Blake wiping sweat off himself and flinging at fans.

MD: This was the match that made me realize that I had to absolutely make sure Eric caught this show. If you told 10 year old me how much I'd love a Bushwhackers match like this, I'd tell you that you were crazy. If you'd tell 20 year old me, I'd tell you the same but with worse language. Every single person reading this over the age of 25 was programmed by every sheet-writing print or internet personality to hate matches like this, and it's the craziest thing in the world! Because not only is the match amazingly fun, but there's so much crafty, savvy, old tricks, put into this: the timing at the beginning where the Beverlys try to run in only to be unable to get the advantage, the fact they actually work in the hope spots and cut offs, the Beverlys working the crowd from the apron, and the bumping towards the end. Luke and Butch had this match with the Rougeaus, the Beverlys, the Heavenly Bodies, maybe even Honky and Valentine, spans of six months feuding with these guys around the horn. I'm watching this and I can feel the frustration for these kids that even at the charity show, they can't just put the Bushwhackers over here. Of course the Beverlys were happy. They had the most receptive audience possible, got to go over, and didn't even have to bump for the Road Warriors (or, if they could see their future, the Steiners).


Roddy Piper vs. The Mountie

ER: This was great. Tragically cut short by our fearless editor, so naturally we don't get the finish, but what we do get is great. Piper is such a great house show guy, and this felt like Piper with a decade shaved off his life, working like he was a Portland babyface, just an excellent school gym performance. Piper is super fired up here, and Mountie is game to work some fast exchanges with him. This would have been Mountie's first and only IC title defense after beating Bret on a house show, and it's a cool scrap. They do this great sequence that felt like a WCW Finlay sequence, with Roddy doing quick rope running and making Mountie do two quick leapfrogs, ending with Piper dropping an awesome fistdrop after Mountie drops down. Later, Mountie bails to the floor off an Irish whip, jaws with the fans, and Piper runs around ringside to punch him right in the side of the head. I wish we could have gotten the whole thing, but Mountie's heel control and Piper's crowd control made this great for what we got.

MD: We haven't gotten a ton of new Jacques over the last few years but one thing we did get was his last WWF singles match for a while, against Bret. Between that and this, I'm thinking we probably missed out on a nice long IC title run where he would have been more or less what Honky is remembered to be: a hugely entertaining, vulnerable champion with a big mouth, getting a ton of heat. Piper hits all the marks here perfectly and the fans love to see him, but Jacques is 100% on for every moment, and you buy into the stakes of it (even though it's non-title so there are no stakes) because he obviously cares so much. Even as he tries to express that he doesn't, like when he stalls and beats a ten count at the last, panicked moment. The transition point of the ref grabbing Piper's arm on punches in the corner looked great from the angle we got it, and the ref (Davis? I forget now) kept the heat off of him for the most part by being so frustrated at Jacques taking advantage. We lose the finish, but it seemed to be poetic, with Mountie trying to run one last time only to have Piper come after him. Piper got the cheap pop with the local high school shirt after the match and Jacques stayed completely on, smarmy and disaffected, until he was entirely out of sight.


Ted Dibiase/Repo Man vs. Tito Santana/Virgil

ER: Repo man actually makes some sense as a Million Dollar Man teammate, though I'm not sure it ever crossed my mind until now. We could have gotten a whole Capitalism stable with Repo and Money Inc. that would have been decried by dorks as the Worst Workrate Team Ever. And we get 5 or 6 minutes of a classically structured house show tag match, and even with guys like Repo Man in there it is so obvious how a simple southern tag structure is a much more interesting structure than the modern wrestling tag. It's a simple layout, the pros can easily hit all the beats, and the interesting ones know how to fill in the connecting stretches. Dibiase really takes it out on Virgil, laying into him with a great chop/short forearm combo in the corner that lays him out. The child heavy crowd is way behind Virgil, and Sherri is active the entire time getting into it with fans and cheating for Ted. We get a great build to a Tito hot tag, including Repo Man sneaking over and yanking Tito off the apron just before Virgil could get there. When Tito eventually gets in the building is molten, all three members of the heel squad are bumping for him, and sadly our cameraman misses the end of match Sherri involvement. We get a quick cut and the match is over, Sherri lying on the floor, and you just know Sherri took some too dangerous spill on a fundraiser show that wasn't even going to be a part of listed company history. After the match, we get some footage of Slaughter and Sherri signing autographs and shaking hands, then get a brief interview with Miss Valley, a pretty young blond wearing her pageant sash and acid washed denim romper.

MD: We lose the beginning and end of this, unfortunately, but we can see how it's laid out. I always like wrestlers with unique stances, and Darsow worked as Repo Man with a hulking hunch, even as he's coming to and exiting the ring. Dibiase does everything right here, but he's more going through the motions. We only see a bit of him, but it's obvious Darsow's more engaged. He wanted to go babyface with the character and be beloved by children. He claims to have quit in 93 because they wouldn't let him. This is the crowd for him. The heat's ultimately on Virgil and it seems ok and lets Tito come in later on with some great sweeping dropkicks when the hot tag happens, but the guy filming gets bored of it all midway and focuses on Sherri for a minute. You can't really blame him, both for Sherri's qualities and what was going on, but it's pretty funny, nonetheless. Also funny is that we miss the Sherri involvement at the end, anyway, and just cut to her being disheveled as she walks out with her losing team. A big run of Dibiase/Repo Man would have probably been better than what we ultimately got with Money, Inc.


Berzerker vs. Sgt. Slaughter

ER: I had a hunch this wasn't going to live up to my internal expectations, because how was the only recorded singles match between Berzerker and Slaughter going to do that? There is only one singles match on the books between them, and that was a 1986 AWA show in Oakland (cruelly just an hour away from me, but I was a dumb baby who didn't even know what pro wrestling was). This show is entirely off the books, and this man somehow didn't understand the magnitude of the history he was recording. The cruelty is in what we won't ever know. Did Berzerker take any big bumps? Not on the footage we have, but we have no way of knowing how much of the match we missed. What we did see was Slaughter being enough of a lunatic to take his signature bump, and I just HAVE to assume that if Slaughter is flying stomach first over the top to the floor, then Berzerker had to have at least done so twice. I had no clue Slaughter was doing that bump on 1992 house shows, and considering Berzerker was a guy who didn't let Curt Hennig outbump him, no way in hell was Sgt. Slaughter's bump going to be the only time in the match that a giant man flew to the floor of a gymnasium.

Slaughter's bump was the clear highlight, but I loved Slaughter dropping Berzerker crotch first on the top rope, because as we know Minnesotans are the best in pro wrestling history at selling their butt and balls. So Berzerker gets bounced on the top rope by Slaughter, then rolls to the floor and massages out his sore balls while still Hussing in the faces of children. I love this man. Berzerker also had a fun diving punch to Slaughter's balls, which made a ton of sense as payback for Slaughter's prior ball torture. The finish left a lot to be desired, with Berzerker arguing with the ref and leaving himself open to a schoolboy, but the match was filled with joy. I wish we got a shot of Berzerker signing autographs for Scouts after, just because I needed to see how huge Berzerker was while standing next to some kiddos.

MD: Bit of a reverse structure on this one as Nord stooges early with groin based stuff, working big as always, but maybe showing a bit more ass, to the point that he had to hit a low blow to take over. Sarge's corner bump out of the ring looked great and good on him for breaking it out given the setting. I imagine no one does it now because it defies physics, but it's a great bump and people would be into it. Nord worked the ref and the crowd and his stuff all looked credible, and Sarge is capable at garnering big sympathy so everything worked. I would have just liked to see a little bit more of it due to the clipping. Sarge took the win with a shoolboy out of nowhere, which was kind of a shame as I wanted to see Nord bump all over the ring for his comeback. Not the match I wanted, but perfectly fine as the match we got.


Orient Express vs. The New Foundation

ER: Strong house show tag, the opener of the next day's PPV, but a match that felt like a main event. Kato was really good at riling up the crowd, and the fans were way more into Owen than I realized in 1992. My favorite was a kid screaming for his attention during their entrance, wanting nothing more than to touch Owen's hand. Orient Express were unsurprisingly big bumpers, both whipping over on Owen's armdrags and taking hard ring bumps for Neidhart's shoulderblocks and lariats. Owen was super active, doing a bunch of double dropkicks and crossbodies, really felt like he was zipping around. Neidhart comes off like a real force with an almost Masa Saito presence, but he is also someone who will grab a chinlock out of absolutely nowhere, which is always so odd to see from a babyface. Tanaka was either really gassed and Neidhart was doing him a favor, or Tanaka was great at putting over the damage of a Neidhart chinlock. Still, the crowd was into all of this and again, it felt like a main event on a show with some pretty impressive star power. This was a great crowd, but obviously a crowd with 80% or more children in attendance is going to be a great crowd. Kids are the greatest wrestling fans possible, and a hot crowd made up of tiny excited screaming kids just hits differently, makes you remember the best parts of pro wrestling. 

MD: Cliff notes version of their Royal Rumble 92 match: no Fuji, shorter all around, and weirdly, less Owen working the crowd with clapping or stomping. Some sequences were exactly the same, including Owen's bridge up, springboard backflip, rana bit, and the finish with the dive and rocket launcher. I liked the hot tag here, which wasn't so much a tag as just a frenetic burst of motion as Owen zoomed across the ring until Neidhart was ready for the slingshot. The crowd was into all of it: Owen's flashy moves, Neidhart's size, energy, and charisma, the Express beating down Owen as Neidhart got increasingly frustrated, and the comeback, but it was missing a bit of a spark I was expecting given the setting and the rest of the show.


ER: And with that, we brilliantly close with a fleeting shot of Ted Dibiase, sitting backstage wolfing down a section of those Subway party subs we saw earlier, wearing the brightest purple Zubaz pants and a gym shirt that looked like a girl's blouse from Urban Outfitters. It was arguably the great wrestling fit I have ever seen. What an incredible coda to the most unique wrestling fancam I have ever seen.

 

Read more!

Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Rampage '92

ER: In what has become somewhat of a Thanksgiving tradition, my friend Josh is over on a brisk Thanksgiving day, the heater in the house is turned up, and Josh brought a bag of Coliseum Videos with him (as well as TWO full pies. I'm looking at YOU Pear Cardamom). We randomly grabbed one, and the choice was the EXTREMELY great looking on paper Rampage '92. We pop it into the VCR, and it turns out Rampage '92 has an Old West theme! Sean Mooney is in a old west town like he's in Mad Dog McCree and he shoots a man! Some bronco buster talks trash to Mooney and Mooney just turns around and shoots him! Twice! This tape is going to be great.

Razor Ramon vs. The Undertaker

ER: The fans are weirdly not into this one, but it's really fun and low-key awesome. The slugfest spots all look good but get no reaction, and the two seem to noticeably ramp things up to win the crowd over. Taker takes a bunch of big bumps, missing a high leap elbow, dropping hard on his tailbone for a legdrop, takes a lariat to the floor, and in the coolest moment of the match gets absolutely launched off the top when going for the rope walk. Ramon evens breaks out a chair - stealing it from a security guard! - and bashes Undertaker in the kidneys! And that wasn't a DQ I guess! Gorilla really puts over Taker eating a chairshot to the kidneys, and this is SUPER important because it actually makes Razor Ramon's abdominal stretch make sense!! Ramon goes for a chokeslam which is some nice hubris, only to get reversed, then Taker goes to chokeslam him again and Ramon does a cool escape by using the ropes. And then he just says fuck it and walks out and gets counted out. He knew when to fold 'em, and I respect that.

Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

ER: I can't get super excited for a match between these two. They've matched up a lot. BUT this is a very fun version of their touring match. When these two weren't such total cocks to each other and were generous in the ring with each other, they really did match up nice. Bret is insanely crisp in this match, every strike, every shoulderblock, every elbow, every clothesline, they all looked amazing. Shawn doesn't bump theatrically here, he bumps HARD. There are two different ridiculously fast and hard bumps, one off a simple shoulderblock, the other off a gorgeous diving lariat to the back of his head, and the two were just like chocolate and peanut butter, perfect complementary parts. Sherri is at ringside and an absolute treasure, cutting promos constantly, looking like a wrestling character in a John Waters movie. This was basically the best era of Michaels, before too much ego took over. He was a really fun heel and made for a fun act with Sherri. And I liked his big heavy bumps, liked his strikes thrown with dickhead aggression, does cool running knees, nice backslide, just a good pro wrestler. He was a like a tighter John Tatum, easily the best iteration of him. I thought this match-up was played out when it started, but they really were satisfying opponents, and this was one of the tighter matches I've seen from them.

40 Man Battle Royal

ER: This is just beautiful. And this is an entirely DIFFERENT battle royal than the infamous Berzerker 40 man. This is worth it just for the entrances, as everyone comes out single file and at LEAST 15 people in this are total pasty nobodies. Some of the nobodies (Rick Johnson? Dublin Destroyer?) actually have decent looks and builds but went absolutely nowhere to my knowledge. There are future names like Glen Ruth, and what's cool is that we don't get exclusively jobbers getting eliminated early. In the other 40 man the opening was so great, with Kerry Von Erich just hiptossing every single jobber to the floor immediately, while Berzerker stomped them all in the head. Well in this 40 man, a lot of the jobbers stay in really long! Guys like Jerry Sags and IRS get eliminated before half of the nobodies, and I thought that was pretty awesome. There are plenty of great moments, like Knobbs trying an honest to god shoot takedown of Bret, and Bret completely stuffing it and dropping a full force knee to Knobbs' chest. I swear to you. Glen Ruth and Duane Gill make the final 10, and they pair off in a way that says "Maybe nobody will notice us if we just punch each other". The final 4 is brilliant, as it's British Bulldog, Bret Hart, and THE BEVERLY BROTHERS! Obviously they don't win, but they both get to eliminate Bret! Bulldog smokes them, icing the cake by press slamming Beau into Blake, and it rules. The format of this battle royal was so good, such a unique look with 40 guys shoved into the ring at the same time

Rick Martel vs. Tatanka

ER: The match itself is simple, the chops looked good, it was somewhat dull, but it always amazes me how into Tatanka everyone was. There was some of the power of just WWF telling this guy is someone worth rooting for, but fans also really took to Tatanka. And yet he was never given any kind of title run. Fans were way into him though, and that's cool.

The Beverly Brothers/The Genius vs. Legion of Doom/Paul Ellering

ER: This is an honest shock to me, as I had NO idea that Paul Ellering worked any taped WWF matches, and no idea The Genius was still working taped matches in 1992. I'm blown away right now. Ellering looks in great shape and is just wearing black trunks and boots, but The Genius is wearing a FULL black body suit with neon yellow GENIUS written multiple times down the leg, and a gigantic superhero G on the front of the suit. He looks like he's wearing LA Park's gear, but with GENIUS instead of bones. I have NEVER seen this version of The Genius. I can barely even focus on the match because The Genius is just standing there in a dayglo bodysuit. But what I am able to see of the match, is obviously super fun. The Beverlys and LOD both get to throw big powerslams, and Mike Enos is a tremendous stooge the entire match. You'd think that with Genius on his team, that Genius would be handling stooge duty, but no! Here's Blake Beverly getting shot into the ropes by Hawk, Blake holding onto the rope to stop his momentum before posing to the fans, and then getting leveled by Hawk. At another point Hawk is chopping Beau in the corner, and Blake charges at Hawk from the apron to break it up, Hawk chops him, and Blake just takes a huge banana peel back bump from the apron to the floor. It looked incredible. Animal is our fun hot tag, sending Beau flying with a backdrop, tossing a nice dropkick at Blake, dropping them both with a DDT, big clothesline, another powerslam, and then LOD uses the Rocket Launcher as their finish!!! Genius gets the Doomsday Device post match, but they win with the Rocket Launcher!!

Tito Santana/Virgil vs. Money Inc.

ER: Dibiase comes out wearing the all white Million Dollar Man suit and he looks downright resplendent. His all white trunks/kneepads/boots look amazing. Tito and Virgil get separate entrances and I'm not sure why that is so funny to me. And Dibiase is a real star in this one. He avoids Virgil, so Virgil has to do a blind tag cheat to get in the ring at the same time as him, and when he is finally forced in with Virgil he works real tough, nice punch combos and a big boot to Virgil's stomach, but is also generous with bumps. He and IRS are great cheaters, cutting Tito off from Virgil, and it's just a great formula. Tito is obviously going to be a great FIP, and Money Inc. are giving leverage assists to each other from the apron, constantly keeping Tito from making the tag. The crowd is hot for Virgil's eventual hot tag but it's kind of flubbed (he throws a couple of off balance lariats and gets a little crossed on the ropes) but the crowd is still into it. The match does not end great but it easily had the strongest build of any match on the tape. I don't think I've seen as much end of career Dibiase and this was a real nice showing for him.

Repo Man vs. Randy Savage

ER: This one is pretty active, even if 90% of the action seems to be axe handles. These two kind of walk around ringside and in the ring exchanging axe handles, and it's not super interesting but it's not bad either. This was World Champ Savage, and babyface Savage always gave up a ton of offense in matches. So here we get Repo controlling things with chokes and a nice flying lariat, nice side suplex, a real look at the Repo Man's offensive game. You knew Macho Man was coming back right in the final 30 seconds, but the elbow he hits is gorgeous.

The Berzerker/Papa Shango vs. The Undertaker/Ultimate Warrior

ER: I really really liked this. It was pretty much just what you would want from this match. It was a fast 8 minutes, which meant that nobody got exposed (anybody know what is considered the best Shango/Kama/Godfather match? I can't recall ever seeing a match with him and thinking "now THAT'S a keeper", but they must exist, right?), and everybody could go go go, and they did. Berzerker/Warrior was a genuinely fun match up, and Warrior busted ass in this, as did Berzerker (I guess I had assumed that would happen though). Berzerker bumped all around for Warrior as if he was Savage or Flair, and Warrior ate a big boot really nicely. I mean Warrior looked pretty bad throughout, and he looked so much smaller than Berzerker that it looked weird that he was shoving Berzerker around. But his energy was there and that's important in a match like this. Shango and Taker were more background characters but the money was in the Warrior/Berzerker showdowns. Another match where you can say with no argument that Berzerker worked harder than anybody else in the ring, really a super generous opponent, took his requisite 3 bumps to the floor. Considering all four of these guys weren't considered "workrate legends" during this time, this match was a blast.


ER: This has easily become one of my more anticipated wrestling traditions, and it helps that we've randomly chosen good tapes. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Read more!