Found Footage Friday: LOST 1990 WWF HOUSE SHOW~!

WWF House Show Wisconsin Fieldhouse 10/28/90

ER: I love these "undocumented" WWF house shows so much. It's like they never existed, WWF out here running secret shows in podunk towns. Matt and I wrote about a WWF Boy Scout Fundraiser show from '92, which is one of my favorite show reviews we've ever done for Segunda Caida. These shows are special. The WWF showing up in some nothing central Wisconsin town with $9 tickets sold at the local hardware store, like when some mudshow Harlem Clowns barnstormers played members my small childhood town's fire and police departments in our high school gymnasium. I was $9, my dad took me and a couple friends, and we laughed when this one Healdsburg, CA cop kept getting Clowned. I had no idea who the Harlem Clowns were before but saw the ads in our local paper, the Healdsburg Tribune, and Healdsburg wasn't a place that got "events". We were going to a town event, like when the fair would come to town. That's the best part about a show like this: It's not filmed as a wrestling show. It's filmed as a Town Event. WWF sold cheap tickets to a show at Marshfield, Wisconsin's high school gym and we get to watch the home video. My dad didn't bring the camcorder to that Harlem Clowns game, the way he would to my baseball games or recitals, but somebody's dad did. If there are a few guys out there who run a Barnstorming Basketball blog, I hope they find it. 

1. Shane Douglas vs. Black Bart

MD: This is amazing footage to have in the first place as we'd never even had the card for this, just the date. This is clipped, but you still get probably half the match. Tail end of 1990 is when I first got into wrestling as a kid (a little bit of a late arriver) so seeing Black Bart and Shane Douglas in a WWF ring is just natural for me. As an opening match on a B or C show, things could have been a lot worse. Bart was a well-oiled machine by 91; he knew what to do. He knew what not to do. He knew when to do it. He could still execute it well enough. He was never going to be the star that he claims he was going to be if you listen to him do interviews now but he could be just as valuable on an undercard as he was in 85 when he was feuding with Ron Bass in JCP. He was solid enough here that it makes me want to go back and look at his WCW and GWF stuff the following year. It's funny to think that your real bottom of the card heels in 90 WWF were Buddy Rose and Black Bart. Your bottom of the card faces were Powers and Brunzell with Douglas just a bit above them maybe as a real up and comer. Bart worked Dustin a lot around this time as well.

From what we see here, it's paint by numbers, but the numbers add up and the paint is vibrant and the kids in the crowd are into it. Douglas is snappy in his shine, including a nice headscissors takeover and Bart sailing across the ring on an armdrag. We don't see the actual transition but we come in with Bart dropping Shane over the top rope. They then work a chinlock up and down but Shane gets the crowd behind him and he's dynamic enough in the rope running out of it. The finish is a sunset flip back out of the corner and it gets a big pop. Douglas had some legs as a babyface here and they could have done something with him. There are probably dozens of shoot interviews I'm not going to listen to for why they didn't. 90-91 Bart is the one that might get another look from us though.

ER: I thought this was a great opener, and I don't think I realized how good Black Bart would be for Shane Douglas. I have seen more than enough early 90s Douglas and I don't think he typically looks as good as he did here. Bart is a big guy, the kind of big guy that dads in the crowd look at and think "yeah now that's a big guy" and the perfect kind of big guy to take Douglas's babyface fire. There were hundreds of guys working matches just like this and Bart and Douglas were doing it better than most of them. Bart really was a (for me at least) much better Ron Bass, but I don't think I ever thought of Shane Douglas as being a potentially great Ricky Morton. He looked like a great Ricky here. His two headscissors were incredible. Everything Douglas did, Bart made look better, but those headscissors would have looked great against anyone. They were the classic Robert Gibson/Marty Jannetty style and Bart is a big sold guy who is able to "stand" with them longer. Those style headscissors are always more satisfying to me when you can see the babyface actually working to take their opponent over, so Bart being able to hold Douglas up for that pause before getting slid across the ring just makes them pop. The crowd is wild for everything they do (a beautiful running theme on the afternoon) and it made the simplest things sing. 

2. Warlord vs. Tom Stone

MD: This is more like it. Tom Stone has a windbreaker that fits 1990 perfectly. Warlord is lacking Slick but has the full half helmet and armor and staff. I watched some 87 Warlord in New Japan recently where he was the Dangerous Violence Warlord and very green. That Warlord would have given Stone half of the match. This one did not. It was worked like an enhancement match. Real Immovable Object vs. Stoppable Force stuff. Stone tried some clotheslines and punches and staggered Warlord a little but he did a good job portraying how shocked he was that things weren't working instead of doing what Duggan or Bossman would do and build up momentum. That meant he ran into a clothesline eventually. Warlord was really good at setting his stuff up, a bit lift of the arm before coming down with it, that sort of thing, but the impact never lived up to the preamble. Stone's big comeback was two eye rakes and the biting of the eye which seemed to confuse the crowd more than anything else. Then he ran into a lovely big boot and ate the running power slam. This didn't try to be more than what it should have been because of the setting. That meant no lengthy nerve hold. Unless Stone's family was in the crowd, I don't think anyone was disappointed at its absence.

ER: I'm a big Tom Rocky Stone guy, even though he's someone we barely write about. He's a guy I kept trying to get on the DVDVR 80s AWA set, just because I wanted him represented somehow. What's the best Tom Stone match? I have no idea. He didn't get anywhere near the same match length opportunities as the similar-but-different Iron Mike Sharpe, was never used by WWF as a job guy who would put up a fight or could occasionally win. Stone had to do things to stand out while rarely getting out of 2 minute losses. Here, we get 5 minutes of Stone and while none of his offense is really sold, it's a much broader picture of the kind of personality Stone could bring to a loss (that looked like it was headed towards a loss every second of the match). I love his windbreaker, love his dedication to the job guy singlet (the one with the horizontal strap joining the shoulder straps), and love how he still knew how to land offense that looked good while knowing it wouldn't be acknowledged. His clotheslines looked great, his punches looked even better - grabbing Warlord's head with his left and throwing heavy shots with his right - but his perplexed looks in the corner took the cake. He had no entry point into Warlord, he knew he had no entry point, and knew he had no shot. 

Everybody in Marshfield knew that Tom Stone had no shot. He was Mr. Belding in a way that is necessary but now completely unrepresented in wrestling. I don't think any wrestler projected School Principal than Tom Stone. If you didn't know better, you'd think he actually was a teacher at Marshfield High. We have all watched and attended wrestling shows where a teacher from that gymnasium's high school got into the ring. I went to a show at Antioch High School to see Greg Valentine and Sabu and Antioch High School's football coach wrestle. Tom Stone is the most subtly, skillfully acted goofball science teacher wrestling at his school's fundraiser. He's made for this show. He's the fucking Bruno Sammartino of this specific kind of show. His frustration at his own ineffectiveness, a great "here it goes" shake of the head, and a total surprise when he raked at Warlord's eyes and actually bit his eye! A reminder that Tom Stone is a bad guy who actually wants to win. A great pro wrestler. 

Warlord looked like trash. I've watched a lot of Maxx Muscle matches and Warlord was not as good as Maxx Muscle. He has no weight of any kind behind anything he did. His big boot was light, his clothesline soft. That's not really important. If Warlord had walked by me in my town's high school gym when I was 9 years old, my jaw would have been dropped. Gassed out guy in a helmet and Conan weapon would impress the hell out of 9 year old me. Warlord looks huge in a high school gym. You've never seen a bigger person in that building. His match ending powerslam was a real powerslam, an important lesson for wrestlers in "ending the match on a high note". Save your best thing for your last thing. Marshfield will remember Warlord's size and powerslam and nothing else he did. That means it worked. 

 

3. Sgt. Slaughter vs. Nikolai Volkoff

MD: Legitimately shocking. Slaughter came out to huge, huge heat with Adnan and the flag and singing the Iraqi anthem and calling people maggots. Volkoff had a huge pop and the US flag. I do like how this is an inversion. By that I mean, if you ever see a parody of pro wrestling, you'll never see the foreign guy as the face and the American as the turncoat, and Volkoff was super super over during the summer of 90. The whole bit he did with the scouts made him something like the third or fourth top babyface in WWF, at least for a few months. It really did set up the heel Slaughter character well and this was a mauling. Slaughter ambushed Volkoff from behind as Adnan was waving the flag at him and he never let up. His stuff was pointed and credible, mean, just rubbing Volkoff's face in the ground, plastering him with shots from every angle, just being relentless. Warlord is supposed to be slow and methodological, but the difference in the actual perceived impact was telling. You keep looking for Volkoff's comeback and it never gets there. He just eats a bunch of elbow drops and the camel clutch, followed by a post match beating.

ER: When Matt sent me the card for this show it hadn't crossed my mind that Sgt. Slaughter would be bringing his Iraqi Sympathizer routine to this high school. It would have been so fucking wild if someone came flying an Iraqi flag into my school when I was a kid. How could people in central Wisconsin process a guy coming into their town and rooting for Iraq? Do they know the formula? Could they understand it was all part of the show? What's the percentage of Believers? The Gulf War was fresh in 1990. I, a child, would not have been permitted to show any kind of allegiance with Iraq on school grounds and I wish I could have seen the reactions from my town's adults. Sgt. Slaughter praising Iraq and shouting a G rated Tracy Smothers promo at the unexpecting crowd is an incredible sight on its own, but, even as a child, I would have expected Sgt. Slaughter's comeuppance to be arriving any minute. 

Matt's not wrong about how loved Volkoff was that summer, but even if he hadn't been, it was a man waving a large American flag in the face of a man waving an Iraqi flag at what was basically the onset of the Gulf War. Everybody in that building knew that America would come out of this looking good. 

And then Sgt. Slaughter just fucked Volkoff up for several minutes and got him to tap without ever absorbing a single shot, then continued fucking Volkoff up after winning. I and everyone in Marshfield knew that it was only a matter of time before one of Slaughter's constant barrage of kicks to the ribs and big man shots to the body got turned back against him, and instead American got run the fuck over and buried like if the first 15 minutes of Red Dawn had been the whole movie. I don't know if I have ever seen America fare worse in a high school gymnasium. This might be our greatest document of America in the role of Yoji Anjo flying to America fight Rickson Gracie. 

4. Rockers vs. Power and Glory

MD: Really good tag. Great Michaels performance too but everyone was on here. It started with Jannetty hitting a top rope fist on Hercules who was swinging his chain in the middle of the ring for an awesome visual to start and never really let up. Rockers kept outquicking Power and Glory's attempt to cheat to take over to keep the shine but it was overall pretty brisk. Nothing wore out its welcome. When Jannetty was in there (and getting a chant), Shawn was engaged on the apron. It took a fairly complex series of three or four cheating attempts to finally take over on Michaels. They mostly worked over his leg. There was a great hope spot where Roma was stepping on the ankle to prevent him from tag and so he could taunt Jannetty and Michaels worked himself halfway up and did a sort of falling punch which looked perfect given the HH quality. They were drawing a bunch of heat by attacking Jannetty on the apron and focusing on the leg, building to Michaels kicking Herc into the corner on a spinning toe hold. Jannetty came in hot setting up the finish where Michaels, having been tossed outside, pulled Hercules away allowing Jannetty to duck the double clothesline and hit a cross body on Roma. Fans were into this and if anything, I could have used an extra minute or two.

ER: Great tag match from two of the great WWF tag teams. Power and Glory were so good. Of course the Rockers were good but Power and Glory were so good. Hercules and Paul Roma are each guys who don't give enough credit. Hercules' as a worker keeps looking better and better the more I revisit that era. He's another act that plays huge in a high school gym. Look how he swings the chains, knowing exactly how close he can stand to Marty Jannetty to not actually chain whip the man while still swinging the chains at full extension. Paul Roma, meanwhile, holds up tremendously, as he's the greasiest slimeball around and looks and acts like someone who should be the greasiest slimeball around. He was born into being an asshole. You cannot look like Paul Roma and not be a jackoff. This building understood that on sight, and they also understood that the Rockers were the coolest boys in town. Marty Jannetty especially got a huge reaction, and the opening of this match should have been the way a classic PPV match happened. Hercules swinging chains in Marty's face, Marty climbing to the top rope and leaping off with a fist to the face. 

I love watching southern tag formula in American gyms. Bad versions of it usually work, great versions of it lead to ear splitting joyous reactions. When Marty tags in after Michaels has been getting his leg kicked and stomped over? It's impossible to picture anything or anyone getting a louder reaction. Power and Glory did nothing over the top to work over Michaels' knee, other than look exactly the way Power and Glory look and simply kicking and stomping at his leg. They didn't need to do anything else, the energy was perfect. It could have gone on another 10 minutes and it only would have gotten better with each minute. This crowd would have been along for every stomp and every close tag. I do wish Michaels had been cut off from a tag one or two or three more times, but this deserved every scream of that hot tag. The Marty chants are calorific icing. 

5. Koko B. Ware vs. Boris Zhukov

MD: Koko looks like a million bucks here. Most entertaining, compelling, engaging babyface in the world. Zhukov does his part to start, stalling early while Koko keeps the USA chants going and holds court in the ring, and then walking right into a whole lot of stooing shtick. The best bit was when Koko would headbutt him and Zhukov would stagger and then Koko would mock the stagger. Legitimately funny stuff. Eventually Zhukov dragged him down into that nerve hold I was worried about in the Warlord match, but it worked here far better. Some good hope spots and cutoffs before Koko came back and eventually won it with a missile dropkick so high that he basically bounced off the top of Zhukov's head. I'm not doing this one justice but it was very good for what it was.

ER: Was every person on this roster just the perfect High School Gym Attraction? Any child who sees Koko B. Ware dance into their gym, literal parrot on his shoulder, bronze suit glittering, looking like the coolest confident most fun person in the world. A Megastar cartoon of a man. I dated a girl my age whose connection to wrestling was watching Sunday morning WWF with her brother, and Koko B. Ware was her favorite. How couldn't he be the favorite? Do you know how wide I smiled and how my voice went up when a hot girl told me she loved Koko B. Ware at some point in her life. That's special. We'll have that. I smile when I pass my Koko Hasbro. If, instead of Koko B. Ware - a name every American should be allowed to hear once in their life, because it's a fake name that has a real chance to stick with someone after hearing it just one time. What's a better pro wrestler name than Koko B. Ware? Gorilla Monsoon? Probably. But not many. We should have been given Attitude era Koko. Lives would have changed. The charm of children asking questions on pro wrestling handhelds is one of the truly innocent and charming experiences in our scumbag obsession of choice. Suddenly every child in every part of this building had questions when Koko B. Ware appeared in their lives. 

6. Texas Tornado vs. Mr. Perfect

MD: I don't know about this one. It had some weird, weird structural things that would have made more sense if Perfect had the belt and wasn't the challenger. He attacked Kerry on the way in, but Kerry came back, hit the tornado punch on the floor, and then started play King of the Mountain, keeping Perfect out of the ring. It was pretty back and forth after that with Perfect able to chip away but never hold control for long. Kerry was going to Kerry. They definitely felt more room to breathe given that this was a house show that no one was ever going to see. Perfect BLOCKED the discus punch on the inside. Kerry hit it another time or two in the match incidentally, just twirling around after his punches. Kerry kicked out of the PerfectPlex. At some point, you got the sense that maybe they were just having fun with it because they were on a B show in Wisconsin? 

The finish was fun with Perfect undoing the turnbuckles but Kerry cutting him off and running him across the ring to faceplant him into the metal. Perfect did a triple gainer in the air exactly as you'd want him to in that situation but he still managed to kick out at too. It didn't matter much though as Kerry just spun around the ring at full speed to hit the tornado punch one last time for the win. Post-match, Hennig just decided to lay there for a bit. It was an entertaining house show performance (and has value along those lines certainly) but I don't it necessarily had the substance to go along with the sizzle.

ER: I wish we had sound during Kerry's entrance because that crowd looked loud and Kerry took a long time with it, slow walked it in his perfect jacket. But we have all of this full match, and I loved it a lot more than Matt. I thought this was a great match, a stiff dominating heel Perfect performance against a tough fight back aw shucks babyface Kerry performance. Kerry spammed variations on the discus punch in between a consistently dominant Perfect attack. This was really physical. When Perfect bumped for Kerry, he bumped for Kerry, but when he hit Kerry he hit Kerry. Every punch and every chop Perfect threw played directly into this camcorder lens 12 riser seats up. Perfect was an unrelenting attacker, smothering our sculpted god. Two different times in this match, Perfect flung himself over the top rope to the floor to continue an attack as quickly as possible. Our cameraman misses a huge Perfect bump to the floor that gets the gym jumping to their feet, but you can see his feet go over the top, and it looked no different than him flying out to the floor just to punch Kerry in the face. Blocking the discus punch was a legit surprise, and a heel out punching the babyface champion famous for his punches. That's a hero facing a real threat, and Perfect looked like a real threat, easily the most violent worker on the show. Kerry kicking out of the Perfect Plex would have shocked me live; Perfect flipping for a discus punch would have delighted me.  

7. Earthquake vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

MD: Earthquake had Hart with him and Jimmy even did the introduction for him. There was some fun house show goofing here too with Duggan catching Earthquake trying to cheapshot him a number of times. Quake was one of the best ever at knowing just how much to give and exactly when to give it. He was doing all of the Hogan poses too and it got big heat. He knew how to be a monster. He knew how to accentuate the things that made him larger than life. It's not quite the same as how Andre did it, because Andre had such a unique presence that he was accentuating being Andre. With Quake it was more about running a scientific experiment to prove beyond any matter of doubt that physics actually matter. Duggan got in a lot of shots and even got close once or twice (close being making him wobble or teasing a slam). Jimmy helped him take over eventually and he had some bear hugs that didn't look like the most amazing things in the world from the HH vantage but were naturally believable enough. Duggan was able to get hope spots through dodging and firing back but he was cut off. His comeback was pro wrestling perfection as Quake wobbled more and more, including this bit of remarkable fancy footwork to really get it across and build up the drama, before Duggan finally hit the three point stance. Hart intervened but eventually got squashed in the corner as Duggan moved and they sent the fans home happy with a quick roll up pin. We have the Summerslam Fever match between these two and some tags, but I think this was a pretty rare matchup overall and unsurprisingly, they matched up well together.

ER: Earthquake looks so massive here, in ways that we will never see in pro wrestling again. I don't think people realize just how much a big fat bearded guy fearlessly running ropes as fearlessly as God himself meant to our fandom. I don't know if I've committed to anything in my life as fearlessly as Earthquake commits to running ropes, and honestly it inspires me. I've been going on and on about how every wrestler on this roster is made to shine in a high school gymnasium but will you look at how perfect Earthquake and Jim Duggan look in high school gym of a town that had a Carl's Jr. but didn't get a McDonalds until 1991. Duggan's punches all looked like shit, and it didn't matter, because when it came time for Earthquake to tease out a Berzerkeresque spot where he legs keep splitting farther and farther apart with each subsequent Hacksaw clothesline, we were somehow witnessing Earthquake putting more faith into his adductor muscles than he puts into the ropes. I was so certain he was hitting the mat on that third clothesline, plopped down on his butt, and when he went full leg spread hunch forward it was like the greatest Andre spot that Andre never did. These men knew. Some kid went into their town's new-ish McDonalds that day and told them "Nick sent me," and later that night saw Earthquake vanquished by America. What a day. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WWF 305 Live: Earthquake vs. Bam Bam

Earthquake vs. Bam Bam Bigelow WWF Superstars 2/20/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: I love when we'd get a surprise high profile match on Superstars, and this one is exciting. I don't think they even announced this match on that week's Raw, they just went straight into the Superstars intro with a Sears photo shoot of Bam Bam and Earthquake yelling at each other. It was always exciting to turn on Superstars and see a match between two "actual guys". This is a big one. I mean, I was a dumb enough kid that I was also excited for the Virgil/Bastion Booger rematch, but this match actually feels big. Bam Bam is wearing his yellow-dominant flame gear, which always makes him look like a gigantic 9 year old wearing his fire jammies. He also gets in the ring and yells along to his theme song, timing out the Bams, and it's just one of those things that makes Bigelow so perfect. He looks like only he looks, he wears his all-over yellow flame jammers, and he goes around yelling his own name. He's a gigantic toddler and he has my favorite face. The camera does small shaking movements as Earthquake comes out, camera manipulation done right, and it's wild to see how much larger Earthquake is than Bam Bam. Bigelow is huge, but there are a couple of camera angles that reveal just how much taller, wider, and bigger Earthquake was, and the crowd is hyped for it. Lawler even points out how he can't believe Earthquake is bigger than Bigelow. I've been to an NXT house show/TV taping in this building (more modernized than it was in 1993, but the angles and lines were the same) and this is a great match for that room. It's a more vertically built room with no second level, so you get a good view down on the ring, and brother these two filled that ring. 

I really liked how they bounced into each other. The played to the top of the room, Bigelow hitting fun hopping shoulderblocks that don't move Earthquake, then Earthquake charging at Bam Bam with a belly bounce. You get some great Earthquake deep leans into the ropes and his huge missed elbowdrop. Bigelow is a lot of fun in control, hitting two slow lift back suplexes that draw a lot of oooooos and ahhhhhhs from the crowd when they both land (and both of them do land hard). In between the two big suplexes that sent two big boys crashing to the mat, Bigelow stomped and clubbed at Quake, yelling at fans while doing so. They went immediately into Earthquake's comeback, which was the match's only real flaw. The two back suplexes were such cool spots, but once Bigelow missed a falling headbutt after the second suplex they just went into the big finishing sprint. The finish was cool, with Earthquake coming back and hitting a pair of high leap avalanches, but Bam Bam slips out underneath a third, and Earthquake takes a cool topple over the top, to the apron, to the floor, to the count out. I don't think they would have had to put too much else before Earthquake's comeback to make it all feel a bit more complete, but what we got was good. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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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. 

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WWF 305 Live: Earthquake! Adonis! Tugboat! Atlas!

Adrian Adonis vs. Tony Atlas WWF 1/11/86 - VERY GOOD

ER: You might be shocked to know that fans in Philadelphia didn't react warmly to Adonis as The Adorable One. But Dick Graham and Lord Alfred really could not get over what this was supposed to be, and the commentary over half this match is them literally chuckling over the phrase "out of the closet" and then referring more to Adonis being out of the closet. They couldn't get enough of it. They were fascinated by it. They didn't know what to make of it, but they knew that they explicitly wanted to laugh about it. Except Adonis leans into every part of it and relishes the heat, and it's great. And he uses that heat and runs with it and doesn't lock up with Atlas for the first several minutes. He walks out, he gets slurs yelled at him from every side of the ring, and he looks like he's loving every bit of it. This man knew how to lean on the ropes and get a reaction from the littlest gestures. When the blows start coming, Adonis sells for Atlas's big headbutts, always spinning into the mat or bumping it like a brutal clothesline, once even flying into and getting tangled in the ropes. When he wasn't selling for big Atlas headbutts, he was hitting Tony with avalanches and the nastiest diving elbows. Both guys took hard bumps into the turnbuckles, with the Adonis bump especially memorable. Adonis gets crotched on the top rope and it gets treated as a huge crowd reaction moment, and I think I'm just going to have a soft spot for these matches that include a couple big bumps with some good crowd heat. High floor. 

Earthquake vs. Tugboat WWF Superstars 2/8/91 - EPIC

ER: This was short - just over 3 minutes long - but it was a fantastic big man sprint that felt, ahem, bigger than its length. There was belly bouncing, big collisions, and the most incredibly brave trust in ring ropes you've ever seen. Nobody runs the ropes like John Tenta. He's the greatest rope runner in wrestling history, throwing his full ass and hip down into the middle rope with 100% pure faith, the faith of a man being wheelbarrowed on a tightrope across Niagara Falls. Whenever I see a wrestler of a certain size hit the ropes at full speed, the ONLY thing that I thing about is one of those ropes snapping and sending a beautiful giant to an even shorter life. It's the only thing that crosses my mind when Andre throws his whole body backward at the ropes, and John Tenta hits those ropes every single time like a man who has never once considered the possibility of those ropes snapping like power lines in a storm. 

It's a beautiful thing to witness another human as they're showing 100% trust, in anything. Trust is a funny thing. We aren't always consistent in who or how we trust. We all consciously choose what things in life we trust. I don't 100% know what kind of meat was in any of the hundreds of fast food cheeseburgers I've eaten over my lifetime, but it's a risk I've taken with no second thought those hundreds of times. It's not heroic, we just all get to draw our own Trust Map whether we want to or not, and John Tenta has no time to let one single ring rope live rent-free in his head. There is nothing that will keep Tenta from hitting the ropes so hard that his perfect frame goes completely over the ring apron, bicep draped over the top rope as if he's leaning out the passenger window of his friend's pick-up, the happiest eyes you've seen telling you just how much he loves running those ropes. 

He hits two incredibly satisfying clotheslines that send Tugboat flying down in two great ring shaking back splashes. Earthquake runs through Tugboat with full confidence, clubs at his back, and hits a fun jumping kick to the stomach. Tugboat gets to hit a big avalanche and gets to show off his underrated talent as a babyface who can fire up a crowd. The match breaks down when Jimmy Hart interferes, in his resplendent airbrushed Earthquake blazer, gets lifted to the top rope by Tugboat and held there by the lapels, standing in the middle of the top rope. Earthquake nails Tugboat with the megaphone in full uncaring view of the ref. Earthquake is DQ'd and refuses to let that DQ get in the way of his good time, hitting a full thigh legdrop and Earthquake splash. Earthquake is a man who gets value out of his DQ. This is the kind of quick starburst spectacle you want to see from two clashing Kodiaks, a type of wrestling we won't ever see again. 

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WWF 305 Live: Moondog Rex! Andre! Earthquake! Braun! Booger!

Andre the Giant vs. Moondog Rex WWF 8/1/81 - VERY GOOD

ER: The match opening graphic says "Rex Moondog" and it made me laugh so hard that it made an incredible on paper match up even better. They would have given me a heart attack if the graphic had then said  "Andre Giant", and now I only want to think of these two as Rex Moondog and Andre Giant. And THEN Dick Graham and Kal Rudman just keep on calling him Rex Moondog for the duration of the (far too short) match and it's perfect. Sadly, this is yet another big man WWF match that goes under 2 minutes, and at this point especially seems to be something that plagues Moondog and Samoan singles matches. When allowed to stretch out I think Rex P. Moondog has had some great singles matches, but WWF seemed more intently focused on letting him get run over by bigger singles stars. 

It makes no sense to me, as he's someone who actually looked credible fighting back against Hogan and Andre, but I guess they only wanted him looking credible for 90-120 seconds. I like how he takes Andre's offense but I like the way he hits Andre even more. It's futile of course, and it's a shame that Andre treats him like he would treat any of the jobbers in a 3 on 1 handicap match. Rex has these great comical bumps, like his back bump after being thrown into the buckles, or a great moment where Andre deadlifts Rex off the mat by his waistband (with Rex later getting some shots in on Andre while holding HIS trunks). Andre pays him back with a cool standing splash. 1980s WWF never seemed to grasp the value of an 8 minute match. They were either having Tony Garea go out there working a 20 minute draw or they were having a Moondog lose in under 2 minutes. As always, what we get is fun, but even ONE more minute would have made this so much more worthwhile. 

Earthquake vs. Bastion Booger WWF Superstars 3/12/94 - FUN

ER: Not a ton to this one, sadly, other than the probable combined weight of these two. And yet, just seeing the bulging bellies on them is more than enough for me. We need more bulging bellies held in by shaping singlets, and more bulging bellies tucked deeply into hiked up trunks. Earthquake hits his big dropkick, but a lot of this was Booger hitting so-so clubbing forearm shots until Earthquake stops messing around. That moment comes after Booger hits an avalanche and then does his little dance - while Johnny Polo plays the theme to the Odd Couple over it, perfectly in time, for reasons I couldn't possibly know. And yes, I mean that Polo actually played the theme, he had it cued up and ready. It was not him singing it. Earthquake hits a powerslam followed by an excellent big man elbowdrop, before dropping his big ass  on him. A good enough example of the high floor a fat guy match has. 

Braun Strowman vs. Keith Lee WWE Raw 10/19/20 - FUN

ER: This was three cool minutes of a match that should have been at least nine. Strowman punches Lee in the stomach and headbutts him, then runs into him with an avalanche, clotheslines him to the floor, and gets a head of steam before shoulderblocking him into the apron. They add a cool wrinkle when Braun pulls a muscle in his ribs while trying to powerslam the massive Lee, and Lee immediately goes after the ribs. He punches Braun in the ribs and kidneys, hits a big splash, and we have what's shaping up to be a great big man war. 

The problem is, is that it ends right after it establishes itself. This felt like 3 cool minutes of a full main event. But instead, Braun lifts the back of his head into Lee's balls when Lee goes for a powerbomb, then Braun just kicks him to the mat for the win. In a vacuum this was all great, hard hitting big man stuff. But there's no reason to be tossing this match out there in the main event slot and then cutting the legs off it. This would play better if these were two mid-carders having it out an hour into Smackdown, but in a main event slot from two guys who have been occupying main event roles, they should really be aspiring to something higher than a cool Albert/Rhyno match. What we got was great, but it easily could have and should have been much more.  

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Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Smack 'Em Whack 'Em (+ Bonus JAPW!)

As has happened the past few years, my friend Josh came over on Thanksgiving and we played video games and watched a Coliseum Video. I'm not sure we intended this to become a tradition, but whenever Josh comes over he tends to want to either play old NES games, Silent Hill 2, watch a Coliseum Video, or watch old WCW. This time he chose to just wear a Silent Hill 2 long sleeve while watching a Coliseum Video, and this was the one he chose. It's a pretty legendary tape, often regarded as the best in the series due to the selection of Bret Hart matches. I will not spend any sentences beyond this one writing up any of the Bushwhacker segments that happen between every single match of this tape. 

Berzerker vs. Crush 

ER: Oh my god this was GOOD! It was also WEIRD! Because Crush appeared to be completely zonked out of his mind on something, anything. His eyes were really shut and it felt like Berzerker had to keep kicking him his the face a bunch just to keep him awake. Berzerker has to put in a real overdrive performance, Crush taking a beating that only built to his big comeback. I am not trying to paint too negative a portrait of Crush, but there was just something very off and very far away about his mannerisms in this match. Kona Crush was one of my least liked guys in WWF. I hated his look, hated his fluffy frosted mullet, hated his chubby baby fat face. Crush was not a wrestler I looked forward to seeing. But this was arguably the most I have enjoyed him, and we can point directly to Berzerker as the reason. Berzerker put over Crush's strength HUGE, and it was great. They do a couple tests of strength, one ending with Berzerker getting thrown backwards and taking his fast backwards bump over the top to the floor, and then a shoulderblock exchange sees him also quickly whip himself over to the floor. I love that bump. Berzerker comes back in with a big boot and the Crush admirably takes his own bump to the floor, opting to go out through the middle ropes but taking it more like a luchador, which looked weird but cool. 

Berzerker controls things with these great annoying boots to the head, not letting Crush get to his feet, just stalking around him and needling him with these push kicks. He hits a big delayed piledriver, and it's a shame (and also logical) that he didn't break out the piledriver more as he has a nice one. He misses the big kneedrop which gives Crush an opening, and Crush hits a really nice atomic drop and a side slam, before squeezing Berzerker's head until he passed out. I was realllllly hoping for one minor Berzerker comeback during the head squeeze, such as him looking as if he might fight out of it, before eventually succumbing. It did take Crush awhile to finish him with the vice, so perhaps we were supposed to be interpreting that as Berzerker fighting through it, but I would have liked that visually represented better. Still, this match was so good, which is a strong upgrade over every single online review I found. Those reviews collectively described this match as essentially the saddest fart sound in the world. And they were wrong. If anything, this was a joyous, confident, trumpeting fart sound, delivered in front of your friends and family, who would go on to share in your joy. 

Earthquake vs. Repo Man

ER: I was hoping for more Earthquake here, and the crowd is really quiet for a lot of Repo Man's control. Repo tries to use his verbal skills to get the crowd engaged, and I thought it was hilarious when he locked a headlock on Earthquake and said "I got him now!" Gorilla Monsoon calls Earthquake "Mr. Quake". Which would make his first name Earth, I suppose. "Mr. Quake is my father's name. Call me Earth." To be fair to Repo Man, Earthquake doesn't sell his offense very engagingly. He falls down a couple times, but is a little quiet in his emotion. He catches Repo off an attempted top rope axe handle in a bearhug and hits a nice powerslam, nice elbowdrop, does that awesome Earthquake thing where he just steps on and walks over someone's chest, and then brings that big Canadian butt down on Repo's chest. Babyface Earthquake might make more sense against a bigger heel challenger, but Repo Man was not someone the crowd was interested in seeing give Mr. Quake any issues. 

"Cooking for the Single Man"

ER: This is a segment with Yokozuna eating a comical amount of food in a Japanese restaurant. It was not discussing his relationship status, but we were rather seeing just how much food one single, solitary man could eat. Okerlund is there doing kind of running commentary and seeming genuinely amazed by how many buffet size portions of sushi Yoko manages to quickly engulf. They grill up 6 pounds of shrimp, 10 ribeye steaks, just a huge amount of food. Gene keeps bringing up how there is no way they could eat this much food, and Yokozuna just stares directly at the food the whole time. Gene is talking to Yokozuna and asking questions, but Fuji answers all of them while Yoko just stares mesmerized by the grilled shrimp and steaks. It should be noted that Yokozuna used chopsticks to eat this massive amount of food, and he is really great at using them. That is some unexpected dedication. He houses so much food in this clip. It's the most method performance, just a man filming a home video segment on his day off where he gets to eat 25,000 calories without getting up. Gene, Fuji, and Yokozuna were all perfect in their roles. Top end Coliseum segment.  

Ladder Match: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This is one of the reasons this tape was so popular, a ladder match before the more famous Michaels ladder matches. It's probably my favorite era of Michaels to watch, as he's more of a conniving big bumping heel and still has Sherri singing his theme song and looking like a smokeshow at ringside. He takes nice bumps into the turnbuckles, into the ringpost, and a great shotgun blast bump after Hart leans full body weight into a European uppercut. There's some strong Sherri distraction that leads to Shawn quickly climbing a ladder in ring and come fingertips away from grabbing the belt, and the climbing is a real strength in this match. A lot of ladder match quality really hinges on climbing for me, because as uninteresting as climbing something can be, it's an important aspect of this stipulation. The best ladder matches have climbing that doesn't insult your intelligence. Michaels gets knocked off the ladder and gets a real lucky break when the ladder falls over directly onto him but the ladder bounces off the middle rope before getting to him. That top step would have dropped right onto his teeth. Both guys take nice bumps off the ladder, and Michaels continues flying around for Bret's final stretch run, takes a great teeter totter bump into the ladder, and there's a nasty moment where Hart hooks his leg in the ladder bumping off it. I think it was exactly how to take the bump, but it looked like his knee got snagged in a disgusting way. They really take turns taking painful bumps around the ring, and Bret finally grabs the belt after Michaels lands crotch first into the ropes, hitting the ropes, apron, and floor in three successive great bumps. 

Kamala vs. Bret Hart

ER: This was a real favorite of mine when I rented this tape as a kid. I always loved Kamala and this might have been his best full match during his 90s WWF run. Hart is someone who is just going to be better than most at working around Kamala, and Kamala really tightened things up against Bret. Bret knows how to stick and move and the moments where Kamala catches him are great, hitting big overhand chops and catching Bret right under the chin with a mule kick. Hart does a bunch of great things like stomping on Kamala's bare feet (why wouldn't anyone do that??) and I adore Kamala selling his stomped toes. Kamala really plays up the savage role here, and really does an awesome job working up to Bret's pace. There's a dropdown/leap frog exchange that some wouldn't believe, a great leap from the Ugandan giant, in a match filled with cool cutoff spots from Kamala. Kamala was always catching Bret with a cross chop to the throat or a bearhug, and Hart's comebacks were all so satisfying. Hart hit maybe the finest side Russian legsweep I've ever seen in this match, knowing that he would have to throw it completely on the much larger man. You see Bret working through every single step of the move, and it's so gorgeous. He traps Kamala's arm, hooks his neck, grapevines the leg, then hits it. These two are a wonderful pairing, and I loved how logically and interestingly this match worked through its story, a really strong way to fill an 8 minute match. The Kim Chee botched distraction leading to a high leverage school boy is the most believable way you can beat a monster like this. I love this match. 

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: This is undeniably a match that could make a Coliseum Video tape infamous. An actual World title changing hands in a match that hadn't been seen before. The tape makes no effort to hide the fact that Hart wins the World title on this tape, as Lord Alfred Hayes reveals 30 seconds into the tape that later on we WILL see Bret Hart win the World Wrestling Federation Championship from Ric Flair, in a match that is available ONLY on this release. And for two guys whose egos will not allow them to acknowledge their in ring chemistry with each other, I think these two were a real natural pair. This is a great match and maybe the best time for these two to have crossed paths. I don't think you can get a better crossing of career axis, just the best time for these two to have their best possible singles match. 

Flair is super expressive throughout the whole long title match, and his yelps and screams really help put over a Bret hammerlock and other surprise Bret offense. Flair is a guy who, at this point in my wrestling viewing, I have seen so much that I no longer get excited for. But I can still get sucked into a strong Flair performance, and this was a strong Flair performance. He doesn't undersell himself by stooging around, and really acts like a guy who knows all the tricks and knows when to apply them. He's really smart at reversing Bret's offense, with the absolute best reversal coming on a sunset flip attempt. He basically  moonwalks with the momentum of the move until he regains his footing and punches downward to break it. Everyone always instinctually sends their weight forward, working against the move, but Flair treats it like a treadmill whose pace you have to match to keep your balance. Now, we do get a spot where Flair gets his full ass shown while Bret yanked his trunks down (and Hart really holds those trunks HIGH) and Flair takes a backdrop bump while still fiddling with his trunks. You would not believe how loud a Saskatoon crowd can get after seeing the toned buns of a man in his mid 40s. Hart's bumps make Flair look like a guy who knows how to utilize his strengths, and he uses two different sick sternum bumps into the turnbuckles to create openings for Flair. 

All of the work around roll ups, backslides, and the leg work to set up figure fours or sharpshooters was always engaging. Flair works a cool "stalking" portion down the back side of the match, dragging Hart around the ring by his arm or leg, holding Bret's arm while shooting a kick right across the jaw, throwing short uppercut punches that are my very favorite Flair punches, and Bret is always smart enough to know to grab a leg for a flash nearfall. All of Flair's offense looks fantastic here, everything looking like it just rocks Bret. It's genuinely impressive to me when Bret is able to shrug off Flair's chops, as they all look like really lightning bolts. We get an awesome moment leading to Bret's triumphant title win, when he takes a HARD chop and looks Flair straight in the eye while calmly removing both of his singles straps to invite one last chop. This whole match is so well worked, the time filled so well, building to a conclusive and deserving title win in Canada. This match deserves its reputation, and is the kind of match that would make an entire Coliseum Video worthwhile. 

Razor Ramon vs. Undertaker

ER: Ramon has to work a pretty generous match here, as he works the whole thing as if he's a lot smaller than the Undertaker, except he's at worst the same exact size as the Undertaker. Taker is a pretty big lug in this one, and Ramon doesn't seem fully used to being the "smaller big bumping guy" for a guy who is the same size as him. So the ropewalk smash doesn't look great, and Ramon does really well to make some of this offense look effective. But Ramon wasn't fully comfortable in the character at this point (just a few months later he was so much more comfortable in his gimmick and mannerisms), and there wasn't a ton to work with in a zombie Taker performance. There was one long spot where Ramon hits three straight very nice elbowdrops, and Taker just takes them like a real dead fish, not acknowledging that any offense is being done in any way. And that's just not an interesting gimmick or match development for me. 

BONUS THANKSGIVING  JAPW!!!

Homicide/Sandman vs. Da Hit Squad JAPW 2/3/01

PAS: IWTV put up 30+ JAPW shows as a special Thanksgiving treat, so while I am crazy busy today I thought I would add something to Eric's Thanksgiving post. This was in the ECW arena and it was clear that these guys were the spiritual successors to ECW. We get a full Sandman entrance and it is crazy how much taller he is than the doghouse guys, he looks like Robert Fuller. Much of this match is Hit Squad as big bumping heels for the triumphant babyface team. I tend to think of the DHS as guys stiffing rookies and tossing them into walls, but they are also great as stooging guys taking flip bumps and getting stiffed by the Sandman. Apparently Sandman was really into swantons in 2001? Great looking Swanton's too, he hits one with Monsta under the ladder, and one to put Mafia through a table. Finish was nuts with Mack getting lifted for the Cop Killa and Sandman adding a little momentum by shoving his legs, making Mack over rotate a bit so he takes it right on his neck. It's about the nastiest bump I have seen for a move that always ends up nasty. 

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WWF 305 Live: Earthquake! Buddy Rose! Yokozuna! Mabel! MORE!

Big Bossman vs. Buddy Rose WWF Wrestling Challenge 7/22/90 - FUN

ER: Buddy wasn't someone who was going to get much of a match during his 90s WWF run, but he knew all he had to be was a big fat guy who flew around the ring. And my did he fly. Most of this match is Bossman making Buddy run all around the ring, and it's great. He leaves his feet to bump a Bossman uppercut, bumps upside down into the turnbuckles in a crazy moment, bumps to the floor, eats a backdrop, does the silly teeter-totter spot with him sitting on the middle rope, and is thrown into the ropes multiple times. He was a big fat guy who could run, and it was cool seeing Bossman pivot and toss him into the corner, and plant him with that Bossman Slam. Even looking blobby as hell, Buddy deserved more in '90 WWF.

Earthquake vs. Bastion Booger WWF Wrestling Challenge 2/20/94 - FUN

ER: This was Earthquake's short-lived return to WWF, presumably because those big WCW checks came a'callin', but they know what they're doing and so really early in his run they throw him in against a big fat guy. Booger wasn't that good, as far as big fat guys go, but it's cool seeing Quake against a biggun. Booger wasn't super fleet so him running into corners looked awkward, but it's hard not to smile while watching these two. Booger had a couple decent legdrops and a not as good kneedrop/splash (it looked like he was going for kneedrop but then just kind of fell forward on Quake's face/chest), but this was all about what Quake could do in his comeback. He was smaller than his WWF peak 4 years earlier, so his quickness wasn't surprising, but still impressive to see. He picked Booger up for an awesome powerslam, dropped a big leg, great elbowdrop, fans flipping out for the Earthquake splash...and I think back to a simpler time, when my friends and I were playing King of the Colloseum and I got a critical doing John Tenta's butt drop. We all lost it, and I still think about it.

Mabel/Typhoon vs. Yokozuna/Crush WWF Wrestling Challenge 7/31/94 - GREAT

ER: God would you look at the absolute BEEF on display in this match?? Crush was a damn cruiserweight compared to the rest of these hunks, and this whole match was as good as you hoped. This whole match is filled with the constant sound of waterbeds being dropped onto each other. Honestly it was so much fun that I went back and watched it again, immediately after watching it the first time. Typhoon was a really fun rope runner, a guy who really trusted the ropes and always leaned way into them, and we got a great spot where he leaned deep in the ropes and then hit a double lariat on Yoko and Crush. Yokozuna was really fun, taking three of his big back bumps, hitting the corner hard on a missed running butt splash, hitting a nice headbutt, and even swiping Mabel's ankle from the floor (there's something endlessly amusing about a 550 pound dude cheating against a 550 pound dude). Crush really brought something different as the wee lil guy in the match, throwing a couple nice kick combos, working a big ass triangle on Mabel, for some reason trying an atomic drop on Mabel (he kind of went up, barely, awkwardly, but I dug that because it *shouldn't* be easy to hit an atomic drop on Mabel), and Crush missed a crazy kneedrop off the top. The finish was a cool idea, with Crush hitting a tall superkick to the back of Tugboat's head, sending him into a Yoko belly to belly. Tugboat didn't get up great on the suplex, but again, none of these guys should get up for anything.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWE 305 LIVE!

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 3/3/93

Ultimo Dragon/Nobukazu Hirai v. El Samurai/Rio Lord of the Jungle

TKG: This was joined in progress but still felt longer than it needed to be. I can't decide wether the length allowed for a lot of cool moments in amongst the mess or the if the length caused a lot of the mess. This has a bunch of blown stuff and never really comes together.The El Samurai/Rio team is an amusing team. Rio shockingly doesn't blow up in a match where guys are moving at a fast pace. He does an ok job eating Dragon's stuff, throws more suplexes than you'd expect him too, does a really awful Fuller leg lock and manages to not blow up. Samurai looks pretty great until he falls out of the ring running the ropes.

PAS: Ultimo hits an awesome tope, but otherwise has some moments of awkwardness. Hirai looked pretty bad in parts too. Someone could make the argument that Renegade was the second best guy in this match. I am not going to make that argument, but someone could.

Koki Kitahara/Masao Orihara v. Shiro Koshinaka/Kuniyaki Kobayashi

TKG: When Shiro Koshinaka wants to beat the shit out of someone he will do it. Every punch he throws looks like he's trying to break his opponent's nose or cheek bone. After watching Hirai do a lousy job at this type of larger WAR tag partner in peril, it's really awesome to watch Kitahara sell as stronger partner taking a beating. The point where the smaller Orihara has seen too much and puts his all into throwing strikes at Koshinaka (while Koshinaka is holding Kitahara in a crab) is bad ass.

PAS: I love Koshinika potatoing people, there were multiple moments where I though he smashed the bridge of Kitihara's nose. Which is pretty much WAR in a nutshell, lots of guys potatoing each other. It is worked exactly the way you expect a Tenryu fed to be worked. There was a really cool camera angle for Orihara's Orihara as he just flies out of the corner of your eye.

Ashura Hara/Earthquake v. The Great Kabuki/Haku

TKG: Yeah this is four guys hitting each other as hard as they can, all trying to stay standing. The last match had a section where guys took it to the floor for a streetfight. Here that would have just seen excessive. What could they possibly do on the floor that would look more violent than what they did in the ring? Hara just eats an absolute beating and well he dishes one too. I haven't watched the Texas set yet, or seen the early stuff that people are watching on the All Japan set, so kind of still think of Kabuki as a guy with a great superkick and a bunch of nerve holds. But fuck, Kabuki is way more awesome then I could have imagined. Tenta is great at coming in and looking tough and also doing a slow topple and well Haku will throw a superkick that will make you cringe.

PAS: With the WAR Kabuki, All Japan Kabuki and Texas Kabuki I think that soon it will be time to ask if Kabuki is actually a better wrestler then Muta. I loved Hara in this, his headbutts are super nasty, he always aims for the soft part of his opponents head. This is really the perfect match for Haku, as it a match with tough bad ass guys throwing stuff as hard as they can and limited selling. It is basically Haku teaming with Meng to work King Tonga and his partner Uilii Fifita.

Hiromichi Fuyuki v. Shinya Hashimoto

TKG: They do a big pull apart at the start of this and I was totally expecting a real Choshu style heavyweight sprint. Instead they do a neat slow building match. Starting with some leg work which they sell nicely. You forget once they start laying in the bombs, but the crowd stays heated throughout the mat work as they get excited for the build.. For interpromotional match this had a ton of selling which both of these guys do really well. At one point Fuyuki drops Hashimoto with a nasty DDT and you get giddy with excitement. No one does a nastier DDT than Hashimoto, and Fuyuki has laid down a challenge.

PAS: Yeah this has a lot slower build then most of your WAR matches, the structure of the show is very similar to the April show I already reviewed with a nasty stiff tag, slower paced singles match and crazy hot main event inter-promotional tag. It is a really great way to pace a show, and this was even better then Fujinami v. Kabuki. The pull apart built me up (much like the Kabuki mist in the other singles) and then they did a really nice job slowing it down, only to build it back up to a great finish. Awesome selling by Fuyuki at the end as I really bought that Hashimoto knocked him cold (unless he actually did knock him out, then it wasn't selling)

Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa v. Riki Choshu/Osamu Kido

TK: HOLY SHIT!!! WRESTLING AND ROMANCE!!! WE ARE REVOLUTION! I love big match Kido and this was big match Kido. I don't have any memory of Ishikawa but he and Kido are essentially working guys on same level ( beneath Choshu/Tenryu) but are able to step it up to face the higher ranked guys. Choshu and Tenryu are as amazing as you expect them to be against each other and the sections with the B guys against the A guys on the opposite team rule really hard as well. They do a long finish run with Kido just looking awesome and getting stomped on every time he almost gets a fall. Post match pull apart is also really great with Tenryu running over and kicking Choshu in the eye multiple times with the toe of his boot.

PAS: Yeah this was amazing. Tenryu and Ishikawa are both so great as cheap shotting dicks too, no one stomps a guy from behind as nastily as Ishikawa, and Tenryu short punts are as violent as anything in wrestling history. Choshu is Choshu and I loved all the different ways Choshu set up his lariat, my favorite is when he shifted direction and just blasted Tenryu on the apron. This was really Kido's career performance he is so spectacular in the end run of this match throwing out counter arm bar after counter arm bar, you get the sense that he wants the win more then he ever wanted anything. Another match which really compares to anything being done in your more acclaimed puro promotions.

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