Found Footage Friday: GIANT GONZALEZ SPEAKS~! LAWLER'S FANS SHRIEK~! HURACAN RAMIREZ RETREATS~!

Huracan Ramirez/Huracan Ramirez Jr./Kung Fu vs. Bestia Salvaje/Indomito/Killer Arena Naucalpan 1/10/88

MD: A farewell match for Huracan Ramirez and the oldest footage of Arena Naucalpan we have. We come in with a media discussion of Ramirez, but quickly get to the match. This is handcam and as blurry as can be but we can tell who everyone is (the hardest being between Ramirez and Ramirez, Jr. but there are clear differences to their bodies). 

And footage like this is a gift. Who knew that we'd ever get it, right? Yes, it's a little hard to watch but we're pros and it's worth it every time. The Ramirez' did well on early exchanges and then Kung Fu got to play into some very fun rudo communication including some scrambling and tripping that felt novel and interesting. Everything took a turn once Killer was able to get his hands on him, however, all the way to hitting a tombstone on the floor in the midst of the chaos.

That wasn't quite the match ender that you'd think it'd be but it let the rudos really take over. Ramirez got a big moment of shine here where he stood tall against all of them and did well for a while, but it was down to Kung Fu recovering and coming back in with nunchucks to turn things around. That was basically the end of the match but not the end of the beating as Indomito, bloody face contrasting with blonde hair, took an absolute thrashing from Ramirez around ringside. The match was thrown out or the rudos won by DQ but it hardly mattered as the crowd burst in the ring to celebrate with Ramirez. It's clear how much this mattered to them and to the wrestlers and shaky cam or no, it's a joy to get to be a fly on the wall to history like this. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Doink the Clown Pro Wrestling Shenandoah 3/19/94

MD: Indie match between Lawler and a Doink that the internet thinks is Steve Keirn and I believe it. We get maybe the first two thirds of this, as clearly the person filming was running out of tape from capturing the entire Damian Demento match that preceded it. But what we get is pretty great. All minimalist shtick in front of a crowd that was made up of kids happy to chant Burger King for twenty minutes. Basically the best crowd you could get for a thing like this.

When Lawler finally did engage, he got clowned (literally) again and again. He'd miss a punch in the corner and get tagged. He'd miss a punch, duck Doink's punch, miss another punch, and get tagged. The building, timing, and payoff were all wonderful. Exactly what you'd want. Eventually he started to play hide the object, never actually using it but hiding it over and over as the ref checked the hand then the singlet again and again. Finally, Doink got fed up, took the ring bell, and put it under his own singlet and it was a beautiful piece of pro wrestling hilarity I'd never seen before. The match cuts out shortly thereafter but that was well worth the YouTube click.

ER: 15 minutes of 90s indy wrestling Metal Machine Music in the form of shrill children tirelessly screaming maniacally at Jerry Lawler. Lawler doesn't land any offense for those 15 minutes. He takes one great back body drop, and takes two punches. It's what he fills in the spaces between those moments of impact with that draw enough heat to keep waves of high pitched ambient sound ricocheting off the walls of a packed to the rafters gymnasium. Shenandoah is a town with less than 5,000 people and it looked and sounded like every resident was there. Lawler could have worked this match with anyone - no offense to Keirn - such were his powers in 1994. I love the way he throws his over-confident missed punches. The two he throws to miss here are a comic book version of Lawler's normal punch style, reared back and thrown straight as an arrow to exaggerate his full body lunge when fist finds no face. I wish we could have watched 15 full minutes of him pretending to have a weapon. I wish we could have had 15 full minutes of him selling his balls after Doink pulled the middle rope into them. I wish we could have seen the Johnny Gunn/Damien DeMento semi-main that used up the rest of our cameraman's battery. The ending is lost forever, but Lawler made small town ears ring on a Saturday night, same as it ever was. 

Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage vs. Mr. Hughes/Giant Gonzalez WWF Dark Match 8/17/93

ER: I've wanted to see this match for so long. There were not actually that many Giant Gonzalez matches in WWF. 60 matches across 1993, 85% of them happening on house shows or TV taping dark matches. We've seen all of the other possible Giant Gonzalez combinations, of which there are far too few. He was mostly married to Undertaker and Randy Savage on house shows during his run, kept him away from most of the roster, offering no opportunities for him to break out of his comfort zone. I would have loved to see what Bret could have done with him in a singles match, hell in half a dozen singles matches. I'm confident we would have gotten Giant's best matches, until we get the Lawler match footage from USWA. But there's a roster of people I'd love to see interacting with him. Let's see what Tito could have done, or Mr. Perfect. Let's turn him on other heels so we can see freak show dreams like Gonzalez vs. Yokozuna. No, we got mostly Undertaker or Savage, meaning there weren't any unique one off matches that could potentially show up on handhelds. 

This match is the most unique of the 60 Giant Gonzalez WWF matches. It's one of his only tag matches, and it's an intriguing on paper pairing. I'm a big fan of Mr. Hughes and his 60-something match WWF run. He and Gonzalez are a cool team of freakshow giants, and while the match itself isn't some kind of hidden gem, there are moments featured that we don't see ever again and I always love that. The Mr. Hughes/Mr. Perfect sections are genuinely good. Perfect was on a strong run in '93 and I love the way his body reacted to Hughes. There's a Hughes back elbow and big boot that Perfect sets up and leans into so well, his bumping style more reactive than athletic, and it's one of the things that made his later work so good. Hughes was a real physical specimen that should have been a bigger deal. His size and look are awesome, and he takes an incredible Jerry Estrada style back body drop during Perfect's comeback, leaping his knees into Perfect's shoulder so he's several feet higher in the air when Perfect flips him. It's an impressive visual and you can probably count on one hand the men that size who could have done the same. 

But, while it's not a very adventurous offensive performance from Gonzalez - he limits himself exclusively to some of his worst overhand clubbing shots to the back - it gives us what is our only glimpse of something different. This match gives us Giant Gonzalez: Vocal Showboat, a completely different look at the largest man in wrestling. I've never seen him more vocal during a match. He trash talks the crowd, trash talks his opponent - both in the ring and actively from the apron - and he shows personality that was lacking in his TV footage. The camera catches him doing something so funny, and it more than anything makes me wonder what might have been, had they kept him around and used him as a tag partner of other monsters. The moment comes when he tags out, as he makes eye contact with a ringside fan. As he's walking to grab the tag rope, he waves a large hand down over his airbrushed ab muscles, smirk on his face like he's displaying his body for some taken girl, confidently showing off his muscles that are just as fake as his airbrushed pubes. It's such an amusing piece of heel comedy, something we otherwise didn't see him attempt. That's why I find these matches so valuable. All it takes is one quick gesture, otherwise unseen, giving us a glimpse of a different past.   

MD: I watched this before reading Eric's comments (usually I get places before he does so I can't cheat off of him but this time he got there first), and was thinking to myself that I was going to have to come down real hard on Gonzalez' offense. Real hard. You don't want to compare him to Andre but you do have to sort of compare a giant to a giant and late era Andre was immobile but he made every shot seem credible, while you got the sense Gonzalez, who was more mobile, was just afraid to hurt the people he was in the ring with. His kicks barely extended. His shots were just so so soft, and that's ok on some level, but there was no way to sell them as anything but. He didn't have any idea how to use his size to inspire imagination. Thankfully, the one shot that did look great was the one that counted, towards the end when he caught Perfect coming off the ropes while on the outside, which distracted the ref and allowed Savage to get his illegal shot in to set up the finish. That one looked quite good.

BUT that said, I am totally aligned with Eric on the idea that trash talking Gonzalez is something special. With no commentary, you heard everything, and he'd just bellow in from off screen and you'd more or less make it out, would make it out enough, and that guy was alive and feeling the moment. It made me think that he probably did have some pretty entertaining house show performances towards the end, especially if you shut your eyes.

Otherwise, the moments that stood out to me were right at the start, Hughes taking Harvey's hand in a sort of sensitive gesture of friendship as the match started. And the crowd going up for Perfect and chanting for him and Hennig letting it sink in and basking. Otherwise, he and Savage really got almost nothing, a couple of chops at the start. Even when Perfect went through the legs for a tag, Savage got swept right under almost instantly. Interesting match along those lines, one that really protected the heels even in a loss, but that still gave the fans that moment of basking at the beginning and moment of triumph at the end.

Read more!

Our Greatest Giant Gonzalez Match

Giant Gonzalez vs. Virgil WWF Superstars 4/3

ER: Nobody ever talks about Giant Gonzalez as a great worker, and well, that's because he wasn't. But he also never got the chance to be a good worker. He wasn't getting pro wrestling work because of his in-ring potential, but he also never got the opportunity to actually improve his in-ring work. People wrongly say that Gonzalez/Undertaker is one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history, but who else was pulling good matches out of 1993 Undertaker? What are the good Undertaker singles matches from 91-93? He wasn't having them, because he was a character, not a Great Match Worker. Giant Gonzalez was not brought into WWF to have Great Matches. He was a humongous yeti with the biggest taint anyone had ever seen, whose job was to be a slow lumbering menace to occupy the Undertaker. There were no attempts to make him into anything other than that, and after a half a year of that he was gone. During his WWF stint he worked almost exclusively with Undertaker and Randy Savage, with a few jobber matches and two grail Gonzalez/Adam Bomb vs. Undertaker/Savage house show tags that I want to see really damn bad. Gonzalez wasn't brought in to be a worker, and he was never given the opportunity to work different opponents to see what kind of worker he could be. Imagine what Bret could have done with him! We never got Hart/Gonzalez and I hate that we never got Hart/Gonzalez. 

But he did work a few matches against Virgil at the very beginning of his tenure, and that gave us a glimpse of the kind of worker he might have been with a bit more variety of opponent, against guys who could actually let him show off his legitimate athleticism. Sure, he never actually played in an NBA game, but this man was still an athlete. His TV match with Virgil shows more of his athleticism than he got to show in any other match, and I think this match - all 3 minutes of it - is the best version of Giant Gonzalez. 

Virgil avoids him to start, and flashes a bit of footwork when Gonzalez can't catch him. Gonzalez, hilariously, shows off his own footwork. I still see people talking about how immobile Gonzalez was in the ring, but...he wasn't immobile, at all. They did not want him to be an agile giant, but you can see in this match how quick he could move. He moves faster against Virgil than he ever moved against Undertaker and Savage, and when he finally backs Virgil into a corner, there's an awesome visual where he backs Virgil up the turnbuckles with a knucklelock. Virgil is standing on the top rope leaning all of his weight forward to try to get any leverage on the giant, and you just watch, waiting for Gonzalez to shove him backwards over the ringpost to a certain death. 

They worked this match on three house shows before taping this match, and I wonder if there was ever any variation on that spot, if he DID shove Virgil off. But mainly I just think how in awe I would have been had I seen a furry Sasquatch threatening to throw a man off the top rope. I like the way Virgil falls for Gonzalez, and love the way they move around each other. I don't think Gonzalez's offense ever looked better than in this match. His clubbing arms looked heavy as hell, and he threw a kick to Virgil's ribs that looked just as heavy. I love how he ignored a dropkick and then swatted the next one to the side like Kong swatting a biplane. After he swatted that dropkick away, he leveled Virgil with a clothesline that had honest to god great form. We should have been allowed to see him clotheslining Mr. Perfect or Marty Jannetty or any of the other dozen guys on the roster who knew how to take great clothesline bumps. Gonzalez hits a deadlift chokeslam for the win, and kept his hand wrapped around Virgil's throat for a minute after the win, hunched over him and choking him into unconsciousness. 

This is the only real glimpse of what Gonzalez could have been in WWF. It's not entirely different from the Gonzalez we got, but this is clearly our Greatest Gonzalez. 

Read more!

The Great 16 Man WWF Raw Battle Royal of 2/15/93

16 Man Battle Royal WWF Raw 2/15/93

ER: I've watched this battle royal a couple of times now and I think it's grown into a really fantastic one. I was initially disappointed, as it's the last appearance we have of Berzerker (and his only appearance in a match on Raw), and I'll always be at least a little bit butt-chapped over not getting Berzerker all over these early episodes of Raw. Once I was able to emotionally move past that fact, I was able to enjoy this battle royal for the very real joys within. This is a very active battle royal with some pairings that we never got to see in actual singles matches, a cool mix of a few top guys (Razor, Michaels, Tatanka) and undercarders, painful elimination bumps, and hard work. Razor, Michaels, and Tito gave standout performances, with Tito lasting as a surprise final four, Razor actively punching his way through the entire match, and Michaels punching and bumping and stooging across all of it. Every time I saw Razor in the background he was in a punch out with someone new, either decking Kim Chee right across the jaw, getting lifted into a choke by Typhoon, then turning around and throwing his long right hands to punch anyone close. Michaels throws great jabs throughout (teeing off on Tatanka in the corner) and bumps bigger the longer it goes, capping everything off with a ton of showmanship leading up to his elimination. 

Berzerker is really important to a battle royal, as he's constant motion and never gets stuck just trying to lift someone's leg over a rope. This man has no loyalties (though he does assist heels when approaching a babyface and heel locked in combat) and is endlessly entertaining as he constantly stomps across the ring looking for someone to clobber. Even though he was eliminated sadly early by Kamala, Berzerker was involved in a couple of great bits: Tito leapt off the middle turnbuckle to punch Berzerker in the face (Berzerker held in place), and Berzerker sold it by backpedaling all the way across the ring while punching at the sky; when Owen Hart jumps onto Berzerker's back with a sleeper, Berzerker calmly walks to the nearest set of ropes and dumps Owen right over his head to the floor. I was also wildly entertained by Steve Lombardi's appearance as Kim Chee. The Kim Chee persona plays better to Lombardi's strengths than Brooklyn Brawler does. In this role Kim Chee was mostly just trying to avoid Kamala, and his whole time in the match was spent running away from him, directly into someone else's attack. It all culminated in Kamala chasing Kim Chee through the crowd and into the balcony of the Manhattan Center, which was an awesome visual, spotlight following them as they crawl over chairs and run through the loge seating. 

Bob Backlund was his usual extremely annoying battle royal self, constantly spider monkeying himself on the ropes with his butt sticking out, always a hard man to eliminate. Koko got tossed high over the ropes by Michaels, Damian DeMento got wrecked by Typhoon (also a guy with a fun battle royal performance, digging his fingers into peoples' mouth and eyes while they were holding onto ropes), Berzerker took an expectedly big bump to elimination, Typhoon was a big crashing wave hitting the apron and ring steps on his way to the floor, and the Shawn Michaels elimination was spectacular. The match came down to a final four of Razor, Tatanka, Michaels, and Tito. Razor rolls out of the ring after Tito nails him with the flying forearm, leaving Tatanka and Tito to run wild on Michaels. Michaels gets run back and forth across the ring, post to post, taking those "leap to middle buckle and corkscrew senton the mat" bumps to greater effect with each one. I kept expecting him to comeback and at least dupe Tito into getting thrown out, but I loved how it was just two good babyfaces knocking an asshole heel senseless until they threw him far over the top rope to eliminate him. 

There was a great pre-match angle where they said the 16 Man Battle Royal got changed to a 15 Man Battle Royal because all 15 wrestlers refused to participate in a battle royal with Giant Gonzalez. It was a smart move to protect Gonzalez (and everyone else), but a stupid move in that it did not give us any Berzerker/Gonzalez interaction, or Kamala/Gonzalez; because of that decision we never got to see Iron Mike Sharpe make a dumb face as he backed away from Giant Gonzalez, and we should have been upset. But I liked how they did use Gonzalez, having him come out to ambush and eliminate both Tatanka and Tito, giving Razor the win by sheer luck of him being outside the ring when the fur suit carnage happened.  Tito splatted hard to the mat, a great battle royal effort ended with an unforgiving back bump. Gonzalez looks massive, Razor's mullet de-greased and fluffed out behind him as he celebrates his win, hopping in place repeatedly while his thumbs point squarely to his chest. 

Read more!

WWF MSG House Show 6/12/93

 Full 6/12/93 Show

Tito Santana vs. Papa Shango

ER: Great reaction for Tito from the large MSG crowd, still a guy who was a great attraction on a card and should have had a chance to be on more through the 90s. He was a less heralded Bret of this year, a guy who could have a cool 10 minute match with any heel on the roster. And this was great, but also because House Show Papa Shango is a thing I always get a kick out of, because you have an evil voodoo priest working like a Memphis house show heel. He bumps into the ropes, misses elbowdrops, waves his arms to try to prevent going over on a sunset flip (and then coming up from the sunset flip with a big lariat). He buries kitchen sink knees into Tito's ribs and works like a Dogcatcher and it rules. Kids really react to Shango and he knows it, love him yelling at kids on the floor. He really needs to scare kids more, really go for the jugular and get close. Fans love the finish, when Tito finally reverses one of those kitchen sinks and flips over the leg to schoolboy him. Fun 10 minutes to start the show.

MD: Tito and Shango are not guys that I think of as being around this deep into 93. Tito would last another month or two and Shango a few more after that. Anyway, it's always a good time to comment on these shows with Eric because he and I are usually not too far off taste-wise. Watching Shango interact with the crowd was the most interesting thing here and while, in general, I'm glad he did it and did it so emotively, it came off as more braggart than voodoo monster. I'm not sure if that was because he was cycling towards the end of the gimmick or what. We didn't get as standard a Tito formula as usual here, no lengthy shine and a quick, slick roll up. My second favorite thing on this one was either Shango's cut-offs which for the most part felt huge, or Tito's neat little drop down elbow smash to the back of the head when Shango put his head down (which isn't something I remember him doing very often but had a very Matador feel to it).


Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

ER: This starts with Howard Finkel receiving a note that Shawn Michaels refuses to come out unless his music plays first, which is a fun pointless thing for a heel to do on a house show. Our cameraman gets a cool zoom out when Michaels first gets into the ring, strutting and fluffing his hair. It's a cool pull back shot to show the size of the crowd, framed really well. Razor Ramon gets a really loud, wild reaction, and starts the match by throwing his toothpick at Michaels' face, which Michaels of course sells as if he got slapped. And this was a great house show match, a match you could use to argue Michaels as the best on the roster in 1993. He looks like he loves nothing more than getting a heel reaction from the crowd, and making sure Razor gets the biggest reaction possible. Michaels has a huge bump night, really treating a match in the Garden as importantly as his King of the Ring match the next night against Crush. He flies far off punches, gets whipped hard into the turnbuckles multiple times, gets kicked off the top rope and takes a huge free fall bump to the floor, all while working these great cheating spots to transition to his bigger pieces of offense. He works a couple of eye pokes in at smart times, hits a big springboard lariat (which Razor bumps for, stands up, and does a great dangerous no-look backwards stagger out through the ropes). Both throw great punches, Michaels works a choke by flattening out his body over Razor, getting his feet hooked on the ropes multiple times for leverage and drawing heat with it. It all builds to a huge moment of Michaels actually taking the Razor's Edge to a huge crowd roar, but Diesel pulls him out before Razor can win the title. Nothing but action, a ton of effective work in under 10 minutes.

MD: In my head, watching this, it felt like 1993 Michaels was very intent to prove himself, as every Shawn Michaels iteration is. But in 1993, he still thought the way to do that was to make his opponent look amazing instead of making himself (and to a lesser degree, the match) look amazing. In other words, he was out to prove to management that he was a top heel in the company by making the babyfaces look like a million bucks while still having the fans care about him. Some of that was the pre-match shtick, some that he was carrying the belt, some of that he had Diesel with him, some that he escaped at the end. His offense had that manic Randy Savage sort of feel, flying this way and that at someone with stuff that wasn't too out of the norm, just hit from a higher angle and with more oomph. It all works and it makes it a shame that Michaels' goals shifted so much in the years to come.


Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund

ER: This was so great. Hitman works a 30+ minute match with Backlund the literal night before he works a total of 60 minutes across 3 matches. Just an incredible weekend of work for Hart, and this Backlund match looks great when compared against those King of the Ring matches. I think it is clearly ahead of the Bam Bam match and could see an argument for being better than the Razor match. Either way, it's great, and completely different from any of the three PPV matches. This match is all about Backlund being presented as a serious competitor in 1993 WWF, in the venue this man sold out more than almost every other man. Before this he had mostly been fighting Mike Enos and Damien DeMento on house shows, he obviously wasn't working like a guy in any kind of upper card mix. Backlund had wrestled a couple of times at MSG since his return, but this was Backlund working a Bob Backlund Match in the Garden, and it really split the crowd in entertaining ways. It really felt like his true return to the Garden.

Bret Hart didn't really work as the heel, and he didn't need to. Backlund was treated as a serious threat, and the longer it went you had more and more believers shifting their allegiance from Hart to Backlund. There was really only one tiny minor heel story that was paid off by Hart, with Backlund being tentative to accept Hart's frequent handshake requests after breaks in grappling. Backlund treats each handshake like he suspect's Hart of having a joy buzzer, and the crowd doesn't quite know what to make of it...until they get the sense that Hart really DOES have something planned. There's no real reason for them to think that other than Backlund's unfounded suspicions...but they start to believe Hart is going to pull a fast one, and around the 15 minute mark Hart finally turns a handshake into a quick go behind. It doesn't really get him anywhere, but it confirms suspicions, and even though he doesn't do a single other underhanded thing in the match it gives the crowd every reason to root on a Backlund upset.

The grappling in the match is nice and tight, with Backlund working some tight headscissors spots, engaging slow build knucklelock spots, and some very cool leverage work around a Hart hammerlock. Backlund gets to work his classic main event slow burn minimalist matwork again in the Garden, and seeing the crowd slowly won over by the style as the pace quickens is really exciting. Backlund has a great attempt at the one arm lift, getting way down in a squat and getting Hart up, but Hart rolls him back into the hammerlock. When Backlund does finally get the one arm lift he places Hart on the top, Hart hits a big crossbody, Backlund kicks out and then deadlifts Hart into a back suplex. There's a great spot where Hart has his hammerlock and leverages Backlund into a pin, and Backlund reverses by going into a wild splits that made them look like they were playing Twister, eventually reversing Hart's leverage into his own pin. It looked like something that Timothy Thatcher should steal, and the crowd kept getting more and more into Backlund as he slammed into Hart with shoulderblocks. Once Hart nailed his backbreaker and especially the elbow off the middle rope, the crowd clearly thought that was the finish, and when Backlund kicked out there wasn't a bored fan in attendance. It's a great 30 minute build and the payoffs the match builds to are worth it.

In addition to a great match, we get a burgeoning stepdad/son or mother's boyfriend/son relationship between the guy recording this show and an 11 or 12 year old with a lot of questions. You can really hear the kid bonding with this videographer the longer this match goes as the kid shows genuine interest in taping video matches, the guy teaches him a couple of things, answers his questions about wrestling, and they both get involved in the match that neither of them thought could have gone on this long. The man explains some wrestling stuff to the kid, talks about what a big deal Bob Backlund used to be a decade before, and once the kid finds out this man is into Backlund then Backlund immediately becomes the kid's favorite wrestler. "I like Bret, but I like Bob more" is a thing that probably no other 11 year olds said in 1993, but this kid saw a resurgent Bob Backlund as his in, and it worked! Our videographer has an adult friend who tries to talk about Kobashi and Kawada and All Japan, but the kid knows how to shut that down by asking all the right questions about Backlund.

The man explains to the kid that Backlund used to have long matches all the time when he was champ, and they were great. "I have some of them on tape, they're really good." "I'd like to see those! Can we watch them together?" My heart melted. It's adorable. The match is laid out so well that you can hear both of them get really invested in a potential Backlund upset. The man even starts talking about Backlund working his way back into the main event ("Could you imagine Bob Backlund on Raw as champion? In 1993?") and the kid sincerely gets into Backlund's ring work. "He's really strong!" the kid says, after Backlund does his one arm power lift out of a Bret keylock. And the kid only gets more impressed with Backlund's strength as he sees the deadlift back suplex and the atomic drop with Bret held on his shoulder for 8 seconds. The man even teaches the kid some life lessons and is never dismissive with him, actually spending time explaining some things. The kid says some unintelligible insult and the man says "Yeah you shouldn't say that, you could offend somebody." "But I don't understand what's offensive about it." "I'll explain it more later but for now just don't say that." They even go through a routine that you can tell the kid loves, when the man is explaining that the security guard KNOWS he is recording the show, and he goes through a whole "he knows that I know that he knows that I have a camera" and they both keep adding on qualifiers like it's a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's always a treat to hear kids bonding with father figures, but bonding over Bob Backlund in 1993 is extra special.

MD: I saw this one years back and knew it was something special, but it's been offline for a while so I'm glad it holds up. It definitely tends to be an underrepresented match. To point, my pals Marty and Pete just did a podcast where they went over their top 25 WWF matches of this era and while both talked about different Bret vs. Backlund matches, neither mentioned this one. There's no other WWF match like it from the 85-95 period, not with the time it gets, with the commitment to matwork, with the slow build. I'm not sure Bret has another match like this on tape. There's the extended Backlund headlock segment, in and out, Bret spending a lot of the match working the arm (and because he's Bret, it's not that he works the arm for a bit and then works another limb, even like Backlund, who later goes to the leg; he just keeps working that arm). It has such a build for Backlund's eventual deadlift out of the (rolling) short arm scissors, and yeah, all the while, you have this kid with his accent going from complaining about the long headlock to getting more and more into Backlund. My favorite bit here might be the handshakes, the first of which Backlund really milks accepting (and why wouldn't he accept a handshake from Bret?) and then the second with Bret getting a go behind from and Backlund outwrestling him before Bret goes to the arm. It didn't come off as heelish so much as aggressive and determined by Bret, which is a tricky line to walk but one that he could manage easily in front of that crowd. There were some boring chants early during the headlocks but they didn't seem to last to the end. It's a hell of a performance, a very unique Bret match that broadens his case in general, and yeah, super impressive he did it the night before KOTR 93.


The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez

ER: God if I could have been a kid seeing Giant Gonzalez at a house show. I would have been one of those kids standing there mouth open, in awe. The freakshow aspect of pro wrestling always appealed to me. Seeing the very large Undertaker being completely dwarfed by Giant Gonzalez would have been incredible to me, and while I don't think there are any actual good matches between the two (I wonder what would even be considered the best Giant Gonzalez WWF match?) but it's a crazy spectacle that I will always love. It's mostly clubbing, and it's mostly clubbing that doesn't look great, but Gonzalez had an incredible wingspan and those arms look COOL when he is swinging them way over his head and dropping tree branches onto Undertaker's back. The fans love when Taker fights back with uppercuts, and there are a couple of very cool Gonzalez cut off spots. Gonzalez hits a double chop block into Undertaker's throat and Taker goes down hard, then does a nicely timed zombie sit up, and we get Gonzalez smashing him with a chair. Harvey Wippleman's involvement only adds to the excitement, and the finish is Taker grabbing the chloroform rag from Wippleman. Gonzalez used the chloroform on Undertaker at WrestleMania, and apparently TWO MONTHS later these guys were just killing each other's brain cells on the nightly. Wippleman is driving town to town with a huge bottle of chloroform, has a garbage bag full of rags, and two men totaling nearly 750 lbs. are trying to vaporize each other's nervous systems. It's incredible.

MD: Yeah, this was actually a pretty effective piece of business and it's a testament to WWF as an entity and the crowd as well that they could go from Bret and Backlund working holds for half an hour to this without even blinking. The visual of Undertaker punching up looked great to the point where I was disappointed we didn't get a good look at the last couple as Gonzalezes' body was in the way. The nervehold was fine because Taker worked it well from underneath and the crowd was into it. They kept it vaguely interesting around it too, with Gonzales moving fairly well with the kick and clothesline over the top and Taker creation motion with the whip into the stairs. The most unsettling thing was the extended angle of the nerve hold making me look more closely at the rear end of Gonzales' gear than I ever had before. Some baffling artistic choices there. The chloroform deal is pretty baffling given the size of these guys. That was the "Dr." Harvey Wippleman, bit, right? Somehow I feel like it would have worked better with Big Bully Busick if they worked a "Guy who kidnapped the Lindbergh baby" gimmick with him.


Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Tatanka

ER: Great match, a real hidden gem. This would have been a memorably hot main event match on Raw, and the MSG crowd reacts loudly for both men. I find that even more impressive because this has been a card STACKED with good matches so far and this crowd is showing no signs of burnout. It's uncommon for crowds to get tired and react with low energy to a good match, and this crowd has already seen the biggest babyface in the company work a 30+ minute match. But Tatanka's crowd reactions in 1993 cannot be denied, and Bigelow makes sure they stay strong by constantly jawing with the crowd, keeping them involved. This whole match I kept thinking "man what a great Bigelow performance" but I enjoyed the match so much I went right back and watched it again. And then the whole time I kept thinking "man what a great Tatanka performance". Turns out it's just a great match and both add to that. Bigelow's offense looked really good, loved a series of headbutts Bigelow is really great at occupying himself selling for Tatanka's tomahawk chops, knows how to hold his head and stagger into place really well to give Tatanka time to surprise him with a crossbody or flatten him with a clothesline. Bigelow bumped big for Tatanka, but not too big. He would absorb several tomahawks and then go down hard for a clothesline, or take the chops and then take a bigger chop to fly backwards over the top to the floor incredibly fast (great way to set up the count out finish).

He made Tatanka look very powerful, but his cutoff spots kept people loudly engaged. There were three really REALLY great ones, all of which shut the Tatanka cheers off immediately, and all were so cool that the fans also reacted in the way that they knew they were seeing something cool. The three moments: 1) Bigelow taking chops and reeling while Tatanka ran into the ropes for a lariat, only to be stopped dead by a perfectly timed BBB dropkick. 2) Bigelow lifting Tatanka off the ground into a fireman's carry, and Tatanka wriggling out of it into a sunset flip that Bigelow sells perfectly off balance for a couple seconds...before just crushing Tatanka by sitting down hard on his chest. Bigelow looked so cool in this moment that I half expected the crowd to treat him like the babyface. 3) is expertly placed right after Tatanka started his war dance, hitting a couple chops and dancing around the perimeter of the ring, and Bigelow puts him down with one of his best timed enziguiris I've seen. He nailed Tatanka so well that not only did he come off like the coolest guy in the room (helps when you look, dress, and are shaped like Bam Bam Bigelow) but the crowd instantly seemed convinced that Tatanka was OUT. Great house show match, the kind of match that would be a memorable TV or PPV or Coliseum Video match had it aired there, and not merely recorded by a true saint.

MD: While it's another one I haven't seen in years, I remember being a fan of their Royal Rumble 1994 match, and this makes me think I was probably correct in that fandom. Everything hit here and the crowd was more than happy to come along for the ride. Eric covered this really well so I'm not sure what I can add on specifics. I mean, I primarily want to just talk about the sit out on the sunset flip and how the fans went completely nuts for it. I'll say that Bigelow stood out a little more to me than Tatanka, but that's primarily because he was in control of the match and probably because he was just a big looming presence. That was Eric's first impression too and I think if you're going to just give this one watch, what you'll note too. It wasn't just his offense which was so impactful, but the way he reacted to things, whether it be selling his head after cutting Tatanka off or the exasperation for Tatanka's comebacks after he thought he had him down in the stretch (like after that picture perfect timed enziguiri). 

There wasn't a moment that Bigelow wasn't completely invested in the match and the happy marriage of that investment and the larger than life presence of this monster of a man facing off against someone who obviously believed in himself and his character as thoroughly as Tatanka did made for a crowd that was just electric. You could nitpick that they maybe shouldn't have laid it out to come out of a chinlock after the Taker/Gonzales match did something similar with the nerve hold, but it worked so that's all that matters. Past the squash and the reaction it got, the other moment I loved was Tatanka's final comeback. I love monsters who resort to eyepokes to keep control (like Hansen was apt to do) because of the inherent dissonance of this huge heel having to cut off the babyface that way. The first time Bigelow did it, it worked, but the second time, later in the match, it led to the hulk up. That attention to detail is something they don't need to stick in their matches, but I can assure you that crowd remembered the first eyepoke with derision and when Tatanka no sold the second, they went absolutely nuts.


The Headshrinkers/Afa vs. Kamala/Smoking Gunns

ER: Another strong match, the exact way a trios with these guys should have been worked. It doesn't waste any time and doesn't go any longer than it needs to (just under 10 minutes) but gets great reactions the whole time (a running theme on this show). Things blow up quick and I loved seeing the Gunns and Kamala run wild on the Headshrinkers, with everyone all occupying the same space at once. Fans were very into babyface Kamala, and it was clear he had that same Hacksaw Duggan charisma. Duggan was the easiest to book man of the last 30+ years of wrestling, a perpetually over babyface regardless of his booking. Kamala could have easily been kept as a babyface getting great house show reactions through 1996 at least, and in matches like this he comes off as an actual major star. The crowd (and especially the kid sitting next to our director) is in love with every single movement of the Ugandan savage, and why shouldn't he be? 

The match settles down into the Headshrinkers taking apart Bart Gunn, and Bart can take a nice beating. He gets thrown to the floor and takes a nasty bump, hanging up in the ropes and hitting the apron on his way down. Later he takes a backdrop bump (getting tossed by both of them) that would make Rick Rude take notice. Afa is really great playing his part, choking Bart in the corner from the apron, and it all builds to a really satisfying babyface hot tag. Billy is a good hot tag, loved his reverse bulldog (basically the way you'd take down a calf at the county fair) and when it comes down to Kamala cleaning house and landing his big splash the crowd is losing their minds. I like the house show finish of Kamala getting the visual pin after the splash (pinned stomach down of course) and then getting schoolboyed after getting distracted by Afa. A Headshrinker winning a match with a schoolboy is a little silly, but when it's jungle savage vs. jungle savage you get out of there any way you can.

MD: I actually wish this was on Mania instead of a HH because while the crowd was great, I really wanted to see more of Kamala reacting on the apron and Afa in general. You could mainly spot Afa from his hair here. The Gunns must have been working the Headshrinkers a lot because some of Bart's exchanges (like the jumped over drop toe hold bit that led to a payoff of one later) were pretty sharp. The highlight here was probably when Kamala and the Gunns ran the heels off early and everyone went nuts for it. Afa was moving pretty well for a guy you rarely saw in this sort of situation by this point. I wonder how much Doink turning and becoming a harmless mid-card babyface act hurt Kamala in the long run. You could see him the next year as part of a Quebecers/Polo trio, for instance, or the year following in a mix scenario against the Bodydonnas and Sunny, and so on.

ER: I LOVED Bart hopping out of a drop toehold, glad Matt remembered to mention it. 


Lex Luger vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: Another real treasure, and I sincerely think it is the best Narcissist Luger match we have. Narcissist Luger is really great, a criminally short 4 month run that was cut abruptly and foolishly short. WWF had so many hot acts in 1993 that there was really no reason other than post-Hogan fear to abruptly turn Luger. In hindsight it seems so easy to just keep Duggan/Savage/Yokozuna going through Summerslam, and have Luger beat Bret in the finals of King of the Ring. Duggan was insanely over in 1993 and deserved a reward main event, and a Summerslam match with Yokozuna would have been memorable. Hart still gets to have three great matches and KOTR, Luger obliterates Hart with a loaded forearm to win the crown, you go as far as you want with Hart's comeback match with Luger (Hart in a face mask is optional but Hart beats Luger at Summerslam), Luger gets to wear a crown a look impressed with himself in mirrors for two months, it all writes itself so easily. Their TV (and house shows from what we have) was filled with a ton of over acts, the hot acts were almost equally babyface/heel, the only way to stop this momentum was by suddenly turning any one of these naturally growing acts.

So here we get Luger in full Narcissist mode just 3 weeks before the bodyslam heard round the world, and it's a great coda. The pre-match is filled with great Luger moments, like him pointing out poses to Howard Finkel in the mirror, or his reactions when Finkel announced that Luger's forearm would have to be covered...unless he wanted to pay a $25,000 fine and face a 6 month suspension. Perfect has his own great pre-match moments, spitting his gum at least 10' across the ring at Luger, then getting into a quick nose to nose with Luger. Luger slaps him, Perfect attacks him with his unthrown hand towel, hitting a towel lariat. Luger is a great heel bumper, maximizes fast back bumps and takes them athletically without letting the bump get too flashy. He gets kicked around the edges of the ring by Perfect and takes versions of Perfect's signature rope flip bump without the flip. He's great at being chased around a ring, great at begging off, and we could have had at least 12-18 months of him as the King Narcissist before turning him.

Perfect bumps big for Luger's control, which sounds like an obvious thing to expect, but I think is made much more unexpected (and more impressive) by Perfect knowing he would be working three physical matches (including an arguable match of his career against Bret) the next night. So Perfect taking a huge bump getting through over the top to the floor or hard whipping bumps into turnbuckles felt like much more of a risk knowing he'd have to do it all night next night. Luger drops nice elbows and keeps simple offense snug, throwing an especially nice clothesline that Perfect bumped legs out. Luger is an all time great at late kickouts, and he consistently gets LOUD reactions for late kickouts, really getting people to bite with perfectly timed shoulder lifts, arm shooting upward. The match benefits from its distraction finish (it was going to be either that, a DQ, or a count out), as Shawn Michaels (with Diesel) is very good at being a distraction. Michaels comes out wearing white overalls and sunglasses and gets up on the apron, a genuine distraction that allows Luger to blaze into frame with a potential 25K elbow. Luger gets the pin and well...what might have been.

 
MD: There are a few little things I'd tweak here or there on almost all of these. I'd have Perfect's music hit as Luger was posing. I'd have Luger use some submission targeting the back instead of the chinlock again as he'd been focusing on it for a bit. I'd have Perfect take a few more bumps when Luger was in control. I'd have Perfect survive a forearm with the pad on, maybe. In general though, you judge the match you do get, and this one was a good match. Perfect still had to get revenge from Mania (as they hadn't been to MSG since then) and he came in hot with Luger kept on the run. Probably the best thing about 93 face Perfect is that he got his AWA offense back, and had three or four ways to hurt Luger's leg before locking in a deathlock. If he had a bit more time he would have been able to get the full foot-pressing-into-knee Gagnelock but Luger knocked him out of the ring first. The crowd was big for all of Perfect's comeback attempts, be it a punch on the floor or working out of the chinlock into a top wristlock attempt later, and when he did finally come back, it was beautiful stuff (the kneelift, the neck whip, an awesome leapfrog/turn around/dropkick spot). Michaels' distraction was built off of Fink announcing that they'd be wrestling in a cage on the next card (which we don't get, by the way: it's the elimination 6 man with Shawn/Diesel/Bam Bam vs. Perfect/Jannetty/Tatanka), but it was all timed really well as an excuse for Luger to hit the forearm. We really were robbed of a long Luger heel run in 93.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

Read more!

The 1993 King of the Ring Qualifying Matches, Part 2

I took a look at the first half of the 1993 King of the Ring Qualifying matches last week, and here's the shocking conclusion, leading up to a review of the 1993 King of the Ring.


Giant Gonzalez vs. Tatanka WWF Superstars 5/15/93

ER: I love looking at Giant Gonzalez. People who criticize him during his naked Sasquatch suit period are people who don't have any sense of wonder. I wish I had been a kid in the crowd during any of the shows where Giant Gonzalez worked, because I would have been in wonder. Big Show is a far better wrestler than Giant Gonzalez, but Big Show has almost always come off like a very large normal man. Big Show has more mass than Gonzalez! But Gonzalez never came out to the ring wearing dad jeans and a tucked in polo shirt. Gonzalez looked like a damn freak of nature, like something out of a horror movie, and the body suit ruled. Anyone who tells you this weird muscle and pubes suit isn't the greatest shit, is lying to you or lying to themselves. This is a wildly giant man who projects even larger size with his movements and I love seeing him lumber around a ring. 

Tatanka is a cool opponent for him, not because it makes for a great match, but because as a child I wouldn't have known who was winning this match. Tatanka was undefeated! Gonzalez was wrecking 2-3 guys at a time and just chloroformed the Undertaker! An 8' tall man who could dispose of multiple men at once and also occasionally use serial killer tactics to end matches is an absolute wild card. Gonzalez is not great at selling on his feet, but I love the moments where he is clubbing Tatanka into dust. Tatanka gets hammered into the mat real well and Gonzalez knew how to make crazy eyes better than Big Show ever did. His selling on Tatanka's comeback is silly, he doesn't know how to stand or move when being attacked, so he wobbles and stumbles and puts his hands on his head like he is miming "Going Crazy!" But I loved Tatanka leaping off the top with a big tomahawk chop and getting caught by the throat. Our finish is weak, and understandably so, as Gonzalez shoves ref Bill Alphonso (props for using the tiniest ref in a Gonzalez match, smart visual) for the DQ while dragging Tatanka around by the neck, hitting him with a nice heavy chokeslam after the bell. Also, this match might also be one of the only matches in WWF history involving two indigenous opponents, which is really cool.


Doink vs. Mr. Perfect WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/16/93

ER: This is not as infuriatingly laid out as the first match in their series, but it has similar problems. The strengths are strong, and the work is strong, but the layout is still odd and the time limit draw comes off messy and way too early. Perfect has really good energy for a babyface, but is really stuck working like a heel at this point. He has too many heel tendencies and they all come out, and it clearly confuses crowd reaction. It is possible to play a smug babyface, but the formula is still off for '93 Perfect. Doink had a real spectacular entrance, filled with great close up mugs to the camera, weird popcorn eating, and squirting a 3 year old with his lapel flower. Perfect jumps him in the aisle to prevent him from terrorizing more kids, and Perfect quickly goes back to attacking the leg just like their first match. And, just like the first match, the leg work is strong! Perfect drops knees on Doink's leg, kicks at it, locks in a nasty trailer hitch, all of it looks painful. But again, that leads us to a sad clown limping and hopping around the ring and doing his best to fight back. There is nothing inherently wrong with a babyface targeting a limb, but it just plays bad to do it all at once. Perfect attacks Doink's leg for so long that the fans automatically start viewing Doink as the underdog. Just as with the first match, it's all wack. This match gets a couple favors their first match didn't get, such as no bad commercial break that divides the match into Perfect offense/Doink offense. But Perfect just massacres Doink's leg until Doink manages to be close enough to the ropes to toss Perfect to the floor, then Doink limps along slamming Perfect into the ring steps.

Now what this match doesn't get that their first match got, is some actual interesting nearfalls. The time limit draw here doesn't feel worked toward in any way, they just start throwing fists until a bell sounds and again take way too long to announce the result, leading to the exact same confused silence as the finish to their first match. Plus, when you end with a time limit draw after only 5-6 minutes, it's always insulting. I believe there was a Regal/Misterio match on Nitro that went 6 minutes and got called a 15 minute draw, so that's our low bar stupidity with the finish, but this wasn't much better. Also, Doink was absolutely THRASHING Perfect with his punches and got to throw a series of awesome left-rights until Perfect timmmmmberrrrrs over. Valiant fighting babyface, Doink. The ending is a real pile, but I dug Perfect asking for 5 more minutes (which would almost make this a 10 minute match!) and Doink running into the ring to jump him the second Perfect turns his back. Doink limps and hops on one leg all the way down the aisle as Perfect chases him off.


Shawn Michaels vs. Crush WWF Superstars 5/22/93

ER: What a great 5 minute match. Weak double count out finish aside, this was the best match of the Qualifying Rounds. The two of them were complementary enough that it made me want to go seek out their other few singles and tag matches (there aren't many, a couple Rockers/Demolition from '90 and singles matches from '93, surprising that they never crossed paths at any point in '96/'97). Crush really came off like a big babyface monster here, and Michaels helped a lot with that. Crush just facepalms Michaels across the entire ring to start the match, and it stays that level of great from there. Michaels does big bumps but a bunch of great Rock-taking-a-Stunner bumps all around the ring and ringside. I think that kind of exaggeratedly bumping has his place, and Michaels brings a great stooging Memphis flair to his showy bumps. Big athletic bumpers today intentionally seek to copy the athleticism portion of these bumps, most don't think of the stooge spot as the necessary delivery of the athletic bump. Michaels in '93 was really good at not devaluing the spot that caused the big bump. Crush facepalmed him, hit a big clothesline, got shoulderblocked, andMichaels bounced and flew for all of it. He goes through bigger bump ending variations on signature bumps, like when he gets kicked in the stomach while balanced across a corner, and flings himself over the top to the floor. Crush has an all time great Crush moment where he press slams Michaels and slowly walks him all the way around the ring, ref yelling to put him down, Crush walking around showing off a full extension press to every side of the ring, threatening to throw him like Bam Bam and Spike. I have never seen Crush cooler.

What really puts this over to next level was how good Crush was bumping for Michaels' run. Crush takes two notable spots and makes them mean much more, getting lured and leveraged into the ring steps by Michaels, and then run face first into a ringpost. He smashes hard into the steps, and I always like when a big man's first bump of a match is a big crash. A big crash landing that finally takes him down. Right after he's walking away to clear the cobwebs, and Michaels just runs and shoves him into the post. Crush has a great post bump, kind of sliding into it on his knees while he was bumping back. Most guys go in leaning forward and into it making it more obvious you're shielding with your hand, and you're bumping into an unmoving object. When Lawler bumps into a ring post and does it leaned back, feet going out in front of him, it focuses the bump equally on the post bump and back bump, so a great quick back bump really makes the posting go by quicker and look harder (Lawler takes several other post bump variations and make them also look great). So Crush gets waylaid by two straight shots into hard inanimate surfaces, and I love how that's ALL of Michaels' offense. I'm not sure later ego would have allowed for a match where he plays heel and the only time his opponent goes down is when he's shoved into an object. The double count out is disappointing, as the match was so hot that a good finish would have made it one of the sleeper best WWF matches of 1993. But it did set up the PPV match, so we'll see how that match goes soon.


Mr. Hughes vs. Kamala WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/23/93

ER: This could have been a lot better, but it really wasn't meant to be good. It was the shortest match of the Qualifying Round, not even making it to 3 minutes, and played as more of a Kamala/Kim Chee/Wippleman angle. Kamala had a silly and spirited performance that the crowd was into, and his standing shots came off better than Hughes'. Hughes felt like he was holding back. His strikes had a good physical motion to them, mixing up overhand rights, but they would land light. They look too pulled. Kamala would come back with big fat overhand chops and the crowd would fire up. Hughes does hit two of his big dropkicks consecutively (although Kamala sells the first one weird, kind of prancing around waving his arms before bumping for the second one). Kamala gets a cool surprise superkick when distracted by Kim Chee, throwing it back as Hughes approached, and then hit his running splash. Naturally, Hughes gets pinned while on his stomach. That's a really great crowd involvement spot, it's always great hearing all the kids screaming for Kamala to roll him over. It always works and Kamala's faces during it are always a fun silly way to get kids into things. Count out finish is cheap, but Kamala was established as easily confused at this point.


Doink vs. Mr. Perfect WWF Raw 5/24/93

ER: This was certainly the most fully realized of their three matches, and a really good TV match. The first two matches were clumsily or confusingly laid out matches with weak finishes but had strong in-ring. But in hindsight those first two matches were even more annoying because Mr. Perfect chose to work the exact same match in all three of them. It's like Perfect couldn't fathom coming up with a three match progression, so he just worked Doink's leg over in near identical ways in three straight matches over three weeks. The only thing that changed was time. This is the match he got the most time to flesh out the match, which is why the other two matches just felt like clipped matches that ended with no warning. He could have worked an out of control brawl leading to a double count out after 5 minutes, or have Doink close to winning the first and have him figuring out Doink more each match, but he doesn't do that. He just works the same exact progression of leg attacks, leading to the heel evil clown selling a leg injury the whole time. The knee injury was worked better into this match than the other ones, and had more time to go in more interesting ways.

What's disappointing is the match starts with Doink jumping Perfect and choking him with Perfect's hand towel, then wipes himself off with it, getting all the areas. So of course Perfect punches him and gets the towel, then hits a big lariat with the towel. It was a hot brawl that felt like the culmination and frustration of their prior two matches. But then Perfect starts the leg work the exact same way he started it the other two times, and we go into that match. It's a good version of that match, but it's like someone on their third attempt at a joke: even if it's funny it will have lost some momentum. Doink pays good service to selling the leg, not letting it stop him from doing a move he really shouldn't be doing (like jumping axe handles), but he would always be slowed immediately after.

I think Perfect took too much of a slice in these matches, and that Doink could have been more impressive with his limited time in each match. He should have been more vicious. Perfect is tough! But this is still good. Perfect takes a big bump to the floor after getting thrown, takes a really good ringpost bump to give Doink breath, and later in the match locks in a nasty figure 4 variation. A lot of great moments that don't always feel part of the same match but also always feel close to greatness. They involve the second Doink well, with Doink scrambling under the ring and coming out with fresh face paint and a much better wig, and Perfect immediately putting the new Doink away with a killer Perfect Plex. You knew Perfect was showing off when he would deadlift the Perfect Plex all the way over. Crush runs in after the match and really this should have set up a series of Perfect/Crush vs. The Two Doinks house show matches, but those matches never happened. Just Crush/Doink over and over until Crush was dead.

Read more!

A Thorough Review of WrestleMania IX, 4/4/93

This is one of the more maligned WrestleManias in company history, but I'm not sure I've watched it with fresh eyes since renting the tape from the video store some time ago. Let's check it out?

It's great that this show was from Caesar's Palace in Vegas, and Vince just said, "Fuck it, make the ENTIRE SHOW themed after the venue that is hosting this show." Like they just went for it, even though there would have been no way of knowing it was hosted at Caesar's Palace other than them saying so. But it's great. The bright outdoor light is jarring and has the vibes of a mid-afternoon big arena county fair show. The seating arrangement was expertly set up so that 88% of the crowd had absolutely terrible sight lines, and the opening entrances were fantastic. There are a ton of large live animals, and having this many live animals (an elephant, a camel, llamas, birds, etc.) feels like the kind of insane risk that Vince would never take in 2020. Imagine a WrestleMania with the risk of an outdoor elephant rampage!! There are also huge jacked eunuchs (we can assume) carrying people out, and they're so big that I have no idea why any of them weren't recruited into wrestling (unless maybe they were unmarketable because they had no testicles). Caesar and Cleopatra come out, and nobody even talks about how stacked Cleopatra was. Randy Savage gets carried out by the same eunuchs while being fed grapes by vestal virgins, and also telling some dude through gritted teeth to get the fuck off of him when said dude won't let go of one of Macho Man's jacket tassels. Heenan comes out riding backwards on a camel, and does 3 solid minutes of high quality "guy uncomfortably dealing with an animal" comedy, doing a ton of great stumbling and physical comedy in getting off the camel. He gets his toga yanked up (to reveal his big blue Jockeys) and acts completely frazzled while bickering with Macho and Jim Ross. This is a great start.


Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka

ER: I think this is the one match from this show that gets mentioned in kind terms, and nobody even talks about how - much like Cleopatra before her - how stacked Sherri is. And this IS a really good match, with a really bad finish. The match got actually great at one point, with Michaels' performance in the first half of this ranking among his best 10 minute performances. Michaels has a way of bringing a distinctly Texas heel vibe to his best matches from this era, with genuinely funny physical comedy worked smartly within a pro wrestling match framework. There are some really fun sequences early, like Michaels flying off the top into a Tatanka armdrag and feeding perfectly into another short armdrag right after. Michaels had a sequence of bumps that was so damn fun, truly one of my favorite stretches of any Michaels match, when he takes his super fast flipping corner bump and lands on the apron, turns around and takes a flipping bump off the apron to the mats to sell a Tatanka chop. But my favorite part of the match is right after, when Michaels tries to get back in the ring five different times and every time he gets on the apron he gets tomahawk chopped, causing him to bump to the apron and back to the floor. Michaels played this so professionally, actually factoring in the lousy sight lines and lack of screens at Caesar's Palace, so he runs to every side of the ring to try to get in, runs up the ring steps, really lets every crowd member get to see his ass get knocked to the apron and down to the ground. He finally makes it back in by eyepoking Tatanka before getting chopped.

We got a really good section of Tatanka working over Michaels' left shoulder, and I wish they would have gone further with it. It's a cool two minutes of the match, but doesn't really get followed up on (even though Savage attempts to keep it relevant on commentary). Still, it leads to some cool moments, and they built it really well until the match changed course. It started with Tatanka hitting a leaping tomahawk chop on Michael's shoulder, and escalated a short time later when Michaels threw a clothesline and immediately came up holding that shoulder, then took an insanely great bump into the corner ringpost. I rewound a couple of times to see what he did, because he ran into the corner at high speed, and the sound of the clank made it seem like his shoulder should have been splintered into his body. It was some excellent sleight of hand. And while they didn't necessarily play into his hurt shoulder the rest of the match, Michaels clearly began using his right arm for big offense (including a nice diving clothesline off the apron to the floor).

There was a little awkwardness before the great end run, with Michaels getting a little too clever and Tatanka not quite seeming on the same page, leading to a couple spots that took too long to pull off and didn't look great when they did get pulled off, most notably the weird headscissors/rolling armbar/victory roll (that they did their best to salvage). But the end run was what brought this back, as Tatanka looked like a guy who could win the IC Title, and the fans were clearly excited to see him win the title. Tatanka was really over at this point of '93, and every near fall got a bigger and bigger reaction. They really pulled the fans into this one, and Michaels couldn't have handled the big kickouts better, really nice timing to make it seem like he was narrowly escaping the loss. The finish was well set up, but the finish itself was so bad that it would have been impossible for anyone to make it work. We got the big Tatanka war dance, Michaels bumped all around for the tomahawk chops, fans were sensing the big win, and then Michaels did this great missed swan dive off the apron, crashing to the floor and almost into the ring steps. Ref Joey Marella counts him out and Michaels yanks him out of the ring to stop the count. But Marella never calls for the bell, so when Michaels gets back in and Tatanka hits the Papoose, we get the awkward moment of Marella waving the pin away, even though Marella was standing there in the ring while Tatanka hit the move. Fans are clearly confused, the announcers are confused, Marella went back into the ring way too early and should have either sold on the floor until Tatanka went for the pin, or called for the bell immediately. This was a terrible ending, handled terribly, a real set of two black eyes on what was otherwise an awesome PPV opener.

"What a bad ending to a great match" ~Macho Man Randy Savage, summing things up accurately


The Headshrinkers vs. The Steiner Brothers

ER: The Steiners' singlet game is incredible here, among the best of their Lisa Frank designs. Rick's especially is only missing acid dripping dolphins leaping out of purple waves against a neon blue sun. His singlet is all of the deepest, richest neon palm fronds. Scott's singlet looks more like a Trapper Keeper wearing Body Glove shorts, but that's only because Rick's is shining so brightly beside him. And this match also rules! It's a great match on paper, as Samu/Fatu are big guys who won't let the Steiners manhandle them, but the Steiners love manhandling big guys, so it's just the best kind of clash. All four of them had a bunch of cool stuff, and the match has one of the most career shortening deadly transitions I've seen. Fatu was really great at bumping for the Steiners (love the way he runs into a Steiner Line and bumps big but lands with heft), and Samu must have had some kind of bet going because I swear he does more back rake variations in this match than I've seen (at least in a match where they are actually delivered seriously and sold, I'm sure there's some yukfest indy match out there where someone does 70 back rakes before pretending to be eaten by an inflatable pool alligator). An island savage using his sharpened claws to deliver body rakes is awesome, and Samu's best were raking Rick from his clavicles down to his hips, raking hard down Scott's traps, and raking Scott across the eyes before popping him in the eye with a straight jab. So many spots I loved here, like Scott slamming Fatu's face into the mat only for Fatu to immediately pop up and hit a superkick (because duh, that head is impervious to slamming), or both Steiner's coming off the same top turnbuckle to hit tandem Steiner Lines that should have resulted in tandem torn ACL/MCL.

The spot of the match (and surely the spot of 1993 WWF, as not much will be able to top this) is when the Headshrinkers transition to control, and they are supposed to merely hotshot Scott. Instead, Fatu pulls down the top rope and Samu essentially launches Scott headfirst over the top rope straight down. We sadly don't get a camera angle from that side, but it's not the bump Scott prepares to take so the landing couldn't have been good. He clearly, somehow, wasn't injured from it, but both Steiners came off as invincible at this point so  - just as conventional weapons could not harm them - neither could the world's most dangerous hotshot. Headshrinkers were a fun control team and they must have really assumed Scott was cool after that hotshot because they also deliver a (much safer) Demolition Decapitation not long after! The Rick hot tag has the stiff clotheslines and big throws you'd want and expect, and the home stretch has a couple huge spots that didn't get executed 100%, but they're great spots. They really ramped the crazy when the Headshrinkers went for a Doomsday Device on Rick, but Rick caught Samu while sitting on Fatu's shoulders and fell to the mat with him for a powerslam. It didn't come off clean, but it's such a crazy spot that it really shouldn't come off clean. Samu also bumps a little too early for the Frankensteiner finish, doing a somersault bump a split second before Scott had snapped it over, so the finish doesn't come off as cool as it should. Still, the match was fun as hell and delivered on the on-paper potential.


Crush vs. Doink

ER: This one didn't really play like a WrestleMania match, but it played like a perfect Coliseum Video match, so even though it felt out of place on the card it was a style I liked. Matt Borne always had the best makeup fade as Doink, the perfect amount getting rubbed away to reveal his stubble, making him look like when Barney Gumble got hired to play Krusty. A big portion of this is Crush taking it out on Doink, kicking him around ringside, with Doink trying to stumble escape. It's a little sluggish, but Doink is a good stumbler so it works. A thing that does not work about the match is Savage on commentary. He was really on one and taking a long time to get to the point on every point he tried to make, and it got bad enough that Heenan kept having to jump in and talk over Savage just to save him. Savage was rambling on and on about how it's harder to perform on the big stage and he was taking an age to get there, so Heenan has to blurt out LOOK AT THAT! to just get him on another topic. That's the most noticeable moment, but it happens throughout the whole match. Doink goes on control by hitting a stunner over the top rope, Crush springing back nicely, and things then got really good. Doink was allowed to come alive a bit, smiling at the camera, all while hitting axe handles and punches off the top and middle ropes. His piledriver is fantastic and makes the match worthy on its own. It looks cool with the size difference, and Crush sells it well. I did wish it meant a little more to the overall match, but alas. This is the match where we get the infamous Two Doinks finish, with Steve Keirn smashing Crush in the face with a mannequin arm and doing mirror comedy with Borne. I do like how the ref was bumped, with Doink throwing a hard back elbow, hard enough that it made for a convincing knockdown. Your mileage may vary on the finish. I liked the idea but thought they could have done more with it. Using Keirn just to hit Crush with a prop isn't very creative, and WrestleMania would have been a cool time to show off Doink's more vicious side and really make the attack on Crush hurt. Overall, a fun match.


We get a brutal Talk to the Audience segment with Todd Pettengill, with the added bonus of racial Asian humor with a couple plants. Pettengill is right in the thick of the crowd, with one distractingly hot woman who looked sorta like Callie Thorne beside Pettengill the entire time, WOOOOING in a loop, while a guy next to her who looked like Fat Seinfeld kept literally trying to edge her out of frame. It didn't appear that they knew each other but it did appear that he had bad ideas about personal boundaries. Another man just uncomfortably shoves his way past Pettengill mid segment, looking like Weird Al if Al had become a copy clerk instead of a genius. Just shoved right past and walked in front of the camera with a slight shrug and look into the camera.


Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund

ER: Tough dynamic in this one. Fans are way into Razor to start, but Backlund is a never give up babyface. Fans are even chanting RAZOR to start, but then his beatdown on Backlund goes for a couple minutes and Backlund can't help be draw underdog babyface comeback cheers. But there appears to be a constant mix up with every bit of offense Backlund delivers to Razor, as Razor does two real late rotations on hiptosses, Backlund falls short on a dropkick that wasn't supposed to fall short, a clothesline lands weird and Razor clunkily falls straight over, everything looked a full step off and I couldn't tell who was at fault. But it confused the hell out of the fans as they were about ready to start cheering Backlund, then the the messy comeback just made them not want to root for either. Backlund does a cool chickenwing suplex and his impressive long delay atomic drop, but even the atomic drop falls a little flat as Razor falls on the landing and takes Backlund down with him. So not only is the crowd kind of silent at what is going on and confused about who they should be cheering, but then Razor wins with a freaking small package! Razor, the Bad Guy, with 40 pounds and plenty of height on Backlund, ekes one out with a small package. I couldn't believe it. He jumps up likes it a triumphant victory, even though his victory felt like Bob Backlund getting a small package on Razor. It's like that was supposed to be the finish (it obviously wasn't) and someone just said "Eh keep the finish and just let the other guy do it."


Money Inc. vs. Hulk Hogan/Brutus Beefcake

ER: This wasn't far off from being quite good, but it needed some things changed. It has a few fatal flaws, and it's a shame because it should have been an easy sell and a lot of the layout was smart. Hogan hadn't wrestled in a year, so his coming back was genuinely a big deal, and Beefcake had missed nearly three years with his face injury. I think the angle with Money Inc. immediately going after Beefcake's face was strong, and IRS's briefcase shot looked great. When you think of the kind of match build you get from WWE today, there's nothing that compares to the old school no brainer simplicity of this build. A huge star returning to the ring after a year, and - regardless of what you think of him as a wrestler - Beefcake coming back to the ring after a horrific injury. Heels immediately attack the injury, top guy returns, this is all slam dunk stuff. But the match ends up going way too long, a lot of smoke and mirrors, and another messy finish which was starting to be a problem on this show (up to this point nearly every single match has had a bad finish, whether poorly executed or indecisive).

This was a nearly 20 minute match that would have been far more successful edited down to 10. I thought Dibiase was strong throughout, especially his facial reactions to both Hogan and Beefcake. From the moment he walked to the ring in his resplendent white suit, he looked like a man who belonged, and I love how he was committed to being a heel and trying to purposely take shine away from the returning Hogan. Maybe my favorite part of the match was Dibiase jumping Hogan during Hogan's entrance, as Hogan was clearly going to soak everything up, but I liked Hogan's part of it too. Hogan basically worked this match like Jimmy Valiant, and that MAKES SENSE because Jimmy Valiant would know exactly how to work a match like this. So here's Hogan getting into the ring, dancing on the apron exactly like Valiant, and Dibiase puts a stop to it by jumping him. Now, of course, Hogan just runs him off and celebrates before the match anyway, and that's part of why I thought they were SO CLOSE to getting to something good. They clearly KNEW what they had to do, and yet they made some bad choices. 

The match goes on long enough that the announcers run out of things to talk about, and there are a lot of holds and a lot of moments with guys lying on the mat. This is not a good thing, especially with Heenan already trying to rein in Macho Man, and the match's stretches of inactivity lead to a Macho Man moment that is impossible to not laugh at. Ross and Heenan are in the middle of actually talking about something, and Savage just shouts out of nowhere "WHAT AN INCREDIBLE WRESTLEMANIA SOFAAAAAA" (he was saying "so far"). This match just didn't work, and this should have been the easiest match on the card to book. They must have known the finish was going to bum out the crowd, as after a bunch of clumsy stuff surrounding the briefcase (it looked like they couldn't decide to work Briefcase Blunder comedy spots or actually work stiff briefcase shots to the face), Hogan and Beefcake threw money to the crowd. This crowd is the first crowd in one year to see Hulk Hogan - still beloved by many - and you have to have him throw money to the crowd to get them to cheer? That is some desperation planning right there. And who would be happy with one of those "the guy I wanted to win lost but he's still celebrating like the loss isn't really a bad loss" finishes?


Todd Pettengill chats with Natalie Cole in the crowd while Real American blares and she puts over the money Hogan threw to the crowd as being real money. I don't know if she was working or not, and that's how you know Natalie Cole is legit. Was it real money? I mean probably. But why is IRS carrying around a briefcase filled with money? I just thought he had important documents in there. Why would he have needed money out there? For bribing Hogan? Pettengill also interviews the CEO of Caesar's Palace, who talks for a VERY long time about the frankly uninteresting sounding relationship between Caesar's Palace and the World Wrestling Federation. I wonder why Todd Pettengill hasn't cut him off, because the man just keeps talking, and as I'm wondering when and how the cutoff is going to happen, Pettengill puts the guy in a headlock. What the fuck! It's like Pettengill couldn't think of any other way to make him stop and just jumped on him like a friendly drunk guy after a playoff win. I'm picturing Vince screaming in his earpiece to stop this man at any cost, and Pettengill just decided the best way to do that was by jumping on the man. 


Lex Luger vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: Lex Luger gets a great entrance, flanked by four women in bikini thongs, an outdoor arena filled with 10 year olds in disbelief that they're seeing butts. They hold his mirrors with sparklers on them, and it seems windy for that. Luger poses for a really long time, and heel posing Luger is so much better than face posing Luger. Perfect gets a loud reaction for his entrance music and Luger's girls are walking out as he's walking in, and he jumps out of the way of one of them while making an ewwwwww face. Perfect just working his own bit out here. And this match feels like it should have gotten a bigger reaction. Maybe it was half the crowd looking directly into the sun, or maybe they were burnt out from a day just spent out in the sun, or burnt out from the Hogan segment. But this is quiet. It is good, but feels like it should have been better, and there were some miscommunications that looked clunky. But it still should have gotten a louder reaction. Perfect is really smart and senses the silence, so starts playing to the crowd by working stiff and making some loud noise. He hits a super loud chop in the corner and laughs along with the crowds' louder reaction, so he goes back to that in a couple fun ways. He hits another chop for the crowds' approval, slaps Luger in the stomach off an Irish whip, and starts kicking him in the hamstring all around the ring.

Perfect's knee work was really cool, and it's a shame they didn't let that play into the rest of the match. Similarly, Luger's back work was really cool, and it's a shame they didn't let that play into the rest of the match. Each had nice powerslams, Perfect almost wrecked his leg on a missile dropkick, Luger knows hot to take a catapult into the turnbuckles really well, there's a really fast rope running exchange with a slick Perfect leapfrog, a fun match. The finish is another bad one, with this cursed luck that others have had in that it's a bad idea on paper, and a poorly executed idea in reality. It was supposed to be a battle over backslides (that's not the part that sounds bad, battles over backslides are almost always cool as hell), and Luger sets it up by swinging a full 360 on a missed clothesline. Except Perfect doesn't duck or anything, so Luger just spins in a circle and then they clumsily locked arms back to back. Luger gets one and Perfect's whole body is in the ropes, but Marella counts the 3 anyway and it stands. Marella has just been given the worst finishes possible, looking like a guy purposely trying to get fired for the duration of this PPV. We JUST HAD a match end where a ref ran out and reversed a decision, and then this happens. I guess no other refs wanted to take a killer over the top to the floor bump like Danny Davis did the match before. Oh yeah, Hogan fucking THREW a referee! I didn't mention that, and it surely didn't do Perfect any favors. Luger salvages things some by blasting Perfect with the forearm after the match. I loved that KO forearm as a killshot.


Giant Gonzalez vs. The Undertaker

ER: This is the kind of thing I'm here for. I'm always gonna be about the freaks. At first the cameras totally blow this by filming right next to Gonzalez as he walks out, taking away the sense of scale. Finally they cut to the wide shot so you can see how high he is walking among the sea of fans. It's a real good Patterson-Gimlin homage. And I like this match, but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Gonzalez has some impressive visuals and I like his offense. He is not, however, a good seller, with big comical Wuh oh Wuh oh bug eyed facials like he's doing Don Knotts. So I like the big Gonzalez control segment, with him throwing big clubbing forearms. The clubbing looks good just because of that wingspan. He hits a big boot to stop a Taker charge, and hits a nice clothesline running out of the corner. My favorite visual is when he throws Taker to the floor, then follows, and the dude just steps from the apron down to the floor like he was navigating a slightly higher than normal step. He throws Undertaker into the stairs a couple times and Taker really slams hard knees first into them. When Taker makes his big comeback he's throwing his nice uppercuts, but it loses a little oomph with Gonzalez's selling. 

They go to the chloroform finish right away, and I think it's a smart finish that unfortunately came on a show that has had literally nothing but poorly executed or iffy or bad finishes. You don't want Gonzalez taking a ton of punishment at this point, and I thought Savage, Heenan, and Ross put over the danger of the chloroform well enough that a 10 year old would buy into it. Heenan is the one who gets it, as he knows to sell the visual of a rag over the mouth. He's the first one to go "What's that smell? What is that?" and cues the other two. Another weakness of Gonzalez, is that he does not act like enough of a bigfoot. He's yelling at fans to shut up, moving too much like a human. He needed to be more beast than man, and I am someone who is a fan of the muscle fur suit. I think the look is there, would have loved to see an even wilder beard. Gonzalez should have looked like an 8 foot tall Bruiser Brody. But it's a great moment when Taker comes back out to attack Gonzalez after being taken out on a stretcher. The fans flip out and he knocks Gonzalez off his feet with three flying clotheslines, and I would have been losing my mind if I was in attendance. Also, there were a couple of biker goths in the crowd holding up a dot matrix banner that said "Rot in Peace Gonzalez" and they were yelling at the camera and looking pissed as Taker got stretchered out.


They do ANOTHER Todd Pettengill talk to the audience routine, and while I think he handles it well considering, it's just something that's always going to be death. He asks a kid where he's from and immediately yanks the mic away and makes fun of him for not answering, but then talks to two frat guys in Motel 6 togas for an eternity. He also pie faces a 10 year old kid out of the way while he was talking to the two doofs. This kid was just trying to get through and they clearly had nobody blocking off the camera, just had Todd out there in the wilds without a net. Always a bad idea. No chance for upside, nothing but constant chances for you to look like a clown. Too risky. Nobody wants to be put in the position of shoving a kid on camera.


Yokozuna vs. Bret Hart

ER: I thought this was great, although I wish it would have had basically any other finish. This was a finely crafted match between two good characters: Hart the fighting champion and Yokozuna the monster who had hardly been off his feet. Both guys were so good here, but they always had strong matches against each other. Bret's running dropkick to knock Yoko into the corner was such a killer way to start, and I was continually amazed at how intense Bret was working while also being completely safe. Bret could have easily just worked more stiff to make up the size difference, but Hart is out here killing himself to work every move! It was really apparent when he hit his Hitman elbow off the middle rope and made it look great, but you could also tell that Yokozuna would have had no idea anyone had even touched him. This whole match was an exercise in Hart's impressive close up magic. Yokozuna's cut off spots were strong, with him just running full speed into Hart to send him flying, and later hitting a big lariat and a flattening legdrop. It was smart to set up a couple moments of Yokozuna steaming full speed into Hart, as those moments later in the match were used to stage Hart's comebacks, with Yoko missing a great chest first charge into the corner (a cool way of showing a man over twice Hart's size doing his signature bump) and later missing a flying hip attack the same way. The visual of Hart locking the Sharpshooter on Yokozuna's legs (legs that I can say with no hyperbole weigh more than I do) was so cool, and I wish we could have paid this off with a better finish. But instead we get salt in the eyes, quick pin, and you know what comes next.

I'm not going to defend the Hogan segment, because it sucks. I thought it sucked the first time I saw it (did not see this show when it aired, but later rented it from New Release Video in Healdsburg!) and it doesn't look any better now. The visual of a reeling and defeated Bret telling Hogan to take the shot was a bit too much. Hart was a real team player for even agreeing to do that and not rolling his eyes on camera. "Mr. Hogan, sir, I couldn't bring my wife to climax, please sir, could you make my wife cum while I go recharge with some Gatorade?" But the fans live exploded, every single person jumped out of their seat, and at least in the moment it felt like something that the live crowd really wanted. But I'm sure they would have leapt out of their seat had Hart pinned the monster himself, so I can't really give that reaction too much credit.


This show is much better than it has ever been given credit for. It 100% deserves criticism for a full night (afternoon?) of bad finishes. Every single match had a bad finish, whether that was intentional (making referees look like idiots in literally half of the matches in finishes that would disappoint any fan), or just poorly executed by the wrestlers, this was arguably the widest variety of terrible match finishes I have ever seen in one night of wrestling. You couldn't get this many bad finishes unless your goal was to run a card with the Most Bad Finishes record in your sights. But there was a lot of very fun wrestling on this show, and tons of memorable spectacle. And fun wrestling with memorable spectacle is never going to be something that I consider bad, let alone part of the worst WrestleMania of all time.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

Read more!