The 1995 King of the Ring Qualifying Matches, Part 1

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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Keeping Abreast of the Mantaur Situation

Bruiser Mastino vs. Tony St. Clair CWA 11/21/91

ER: This is one of Mastino's earliest matches in CWA, and easily ranks among his best ever matches. Also, it was right in front of me the entire time, but Mastino is related to PN News. I don't know how I didn't actually know this. I even come to the conclusion later in this post that he looks just like PN News. They look the same, they're shaped the same, they wear the same dorky full pants singlets, they both worked CWA, yet somehow it never crossed my mind that they were actually related. What a dummy. Mastino works a smart match here with lariats and slams, misses and nice fast elbowdrop, and St. Clair makes good use of his openings and makes sure to outgun Mastino when he has the chance. St. Clair throws some nice uppercuts and a really nasty lefty lariat, just absolutely drilling Mastino. 

Commentary says "That's why they say St. Clair is the European Hulk Hogan", which is something that nobody had ever said until that guy said it. But all of this is good, it peaks in the right spots and builds to a super satisfying finish: We brawl to the floor and Mastino hits a rough bodyslam on the concrete, slamming St. Clair as hard as you'd slam someone in a ring. When Mastino charges him - and we'd been seeing him run at St. Clair all match - St. Clair finally moves and Mastino hits a hard lariat right into the post. I dug Mastino's arm and shoulder selling from here until the finish, as he hits a slam back in the ring but yells out about his shoulder, then missed a heavy shoulderblock into a turnbuckle. St. Clair wastes no time and as Mastino is staggering out of the corner holding his shoulder, St. Clair locks in a nasty Fujiwara for the immediate tap. Incredibly satisfying match.

Mantaur vs. Bam Bam Bigelow WWF Superstars 6/24/95

ER: Yeah!! This is a super fun big boy battle, kind of shocking that Mantaur was almost the same size as Bigelow (I thought he was kind of short and squat, but he's not that much shorter than BBB). It's a bunch of two big burly guys running right into each other. Literally. They both run and just hit each other with body weight. And it's great. Bigelow throws some headbutts and it makes me realize how weird it is that a guy with centaur horns doesn't throw a headbutt. I'm sure it was brought up at some point, and maybe he just couldn't throw a good headbutt...except I've seen him throw nice headbutts when he was in CWA before this. And now I need answers as to why Mantaur was NOT ALLOWED to throw a headbutt to purposely torpedo his Mantaur run. This was quite fast paced (outside of the longish Mantaur wear down chinlock, which I thought flattened out nicely), Mastino hits a nice vertical suplex, and we had a cool finish with Bigelow getting tossed into the corner, going up and over it Flair style and running to the next turnbuckle, which allowed Mantaur a bunch of time to stagger before falling. Bigelow showed impressive speed, and I don't recall him doing that kind of Flair flip in the corner before (he did almost not make it, which would have seen Mantaur smash into his head at a terrible angle, but he narrowly avoided the 'taur).

Bruiser Mastino vs. El Puerto Ricano ECW Hardcore TV 1/9/96

ER: ECW fans were smart you see, so they chanted "Mantaur Sucks" at him. Mastino appears to be even larger than his Mantaur stint, and in trunks and beard looks almost exactly like future ECW legend PN News. And you knew what this was going to be: Puerto Ricano bouncing off Mastino in various ways while Joey Styles gushes over how big Mastino's calves are. PR had pretty lousy punches and his offense didn't really look like it deserved to be sold, so his gimmick worked. He takes a nice clothesline, Mastino really extends on a vertical suplex and snaps off an awesome belly to belly, and we built to a fun finishing stretch where PR hit a missile dropkick off three consecutive turnbuckles to try and fell the beast, only to get caught on the 4th and absolutely splatted into the mat with a powerslam. Mastino could have actually had a decent ECW run, but the fans were never going to allow that to happen.

The Truth Commission vs. Terry Richards/Al Brown/Gene Miller WWF Shotgun 6/23/97

ER: Oh man do you know who thought the Truth Commission were cool? Teenage me!! You know who had a marginal understanding of South African politics? Neither teenage me NOR the World Wrestling Federation! I remember being genuinely excited week to week for Kurrgan singles matches, had ZERO memory of Mantaur ever being in the Truth Commission (under a mask as Tank, and now I finally understand my friend who thought Golga had been in the Truth Commission, as that would be a fairly logical guess had you seen this match and didn't know John Tenta), Kurrgan had a rattail, the Commandant was actually a great heel manager, I loved all of it. And this was a fantastic squash. Fantastic because the squash offense looked good, but also because the squashees didn't look like total pushovers. The squashees (including a young Rhino, who mostly paired off with Tank) fought back and while they kept taking moves, they didn't, ahem, "just lie there". 

There are moments of them going toe to toe (that never end with them gaining ground) or lifting up Tank only to have him fall on them, so while it was a complete 100% one sided squash, the losing team always looked like they were at least putting up a fight. Tank hits a hard shoulderblock on Richards, tosses him into the ropes only to punch him in the guy (with a nice sell from Richards), and it's easy to picture Richards getting the Mantaur gimmick had he been around just a few years prior. 1995 WWF definitely would have had a guy with a Rhino gimmick dressed in a gray singlet with a derpy helmet of some kind. In retrospect, why the fuck did Rhino never have a gray singlet with a rhino helmet!? Recon (Bull Buchanan) was way more athletic than I - fan of the Truth Commission - remembered, getting height on a sidekick and snapping off a standing huracanrana that looked actually good, and leaping REALLY unnecessarily high off the top to do an axe handle. The Interrogator's rattail was apparently attached to his beret, which is disappointing, as that means he had no rattail and instead had a beret that was operating as one of those rasta hats with fake dreads. Do South African mercenaries award differently braided rattails for committing terrible acts? It seems like they might! Interrogator also hits a bitchin elbow drop, and this whole thing was great.

Tank vs.  Jerry Lawler USWA 3/15/97

ER: Yeahhhh baby you know you want to see a fat dude under a mask hide a fake weapon in his giant  enforced khackis in front of a loud Memphis studio audience! Every Truth Commission member is at ringside cheating every chance they get, and we get a nice minute long explanation of what a "slow starter" Lawler is (which is Phil's favorite specific piece of wrestling announcer BS). Tank is really perfect at hiding a weapon for a studio audience as he reaches DEEP into his pants to retrieve and replace the weapon. We get a lot of good hide and seek, all building to Tank hitting a nice shot to the liver than King takes hard. It's an easy formula to work, but I love it. Every time the ref is checking for the weapon, that's when we get the interference from the TC, including an awesome moment of Interrogator choking Lawler over the bottom rope. Lawler's comeback is good, the strap comes down and he starts peppering Tank with left jabs and a big right, hits his Lawler dropkick, and nails a great fistdrop off the middle rope. But somehow, this all leads to Tank winning the USWA title (yes, the title switched hands on a practically weekly basis, but I had no idea Tank was a one week champ) when Lawler gets blasted with the Commandant's riding crop. And if there are any jerks out there who think we're wasting everybody's time by providing TWO different Mantaur pieces within the same week, let me just quickly remind you that you never would have otherwise been lucky enough to read the words:

"...blasted with the Commandant's riding crop."


With that, thus concludes Segunda Caida's Mantaur content, forever...

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Getting Ahead of the Whole Mantaur Thing

So Mantaur is going to be wrestling on one of the Joey Janela shows this upcoming Wrestlemania weekend. Mantaur has never been a thing, there have been no darkened corners of the internet where I've seen Mantaur referenced in hushed reverent tone. So let's get ahead of it. Let's see how much excitement Mantaur is worth!

Bruiser Mastino vs. Rambo CWA 9/23/93

ER: I had no idea what kind of crowds CWA was pulling in 1993! This is a pretty big set up, and this match completely rules. It's a "Bodyslam Contest" and I love the tricks and teases they use to make one of the more common moves actually seem special. I love stuff like this, like the amazing Kabuki/Adams superkick match, or the Austin/Flair no punches match, this match just ends whenever one of them hits a bodyslam. Mastino is a guy I haven't seen a ton of. He wasn't in WWF that long, and I'm a west coast guy so missed any east coast indies or ECW. But he's good here and I only imagine he'll be even more improved by his WWF run. This is also exciting because it's THE TRUTH COMMISSION EXPLODING! How odd that they'd wind up on a short-lived team just a few years later. Rambo became Sniper, Bruiser became Tank, but the WWF are fucking cowards so they never pulled the trigger on Mantank or Tanktaur. Anyone who has seen the 1986 gem Eliminators needs to go out and watch that after you watch this dope bodyslam contest, then we can grouse about the incredible missed opportunity of a Mantank.

Anyway, this is great. We get a bunch of fun teases around a bodyslam, Rambo turns a slam attempt into a crossbody, later he hits an actual cross body and Mastino tries to steady himself to turn it into a slam before falling backwards, Rambo gets him up for a slam but Mastino grabs the top rope to save himself, all great stuff that played well in the match. And the match works because it's not just 12 minutes of guys shoving one hand into their opponent's nethers to try for a slam, they actually work a nice match with slam attempts peppered in. I think my absolute favorite deep psychology part of the match is when Rambo goes on an offensive sequence that almost always ends in a bodyslam. Picture any hot tag where the opponents are charging the hot tag: you get guys running into hiptosses, dropkicks, and usually a bodyslam or two. Well Mastino starts running in, eats a couple hiptosses, and then when he runs in for what our brains have been conditioned to think "this is the bodyslam", Mastino just rolls out of the ring. Brilliant. Rambo was so so here but the crowd was into him. Mastino though, I really liked. He hit and missed a nice avalanche, threw lariats with a heavy arm, had a nice stout guy standing splash, a good smothering chinlock....Huh. There is some fire to this smoke.

Mantaur vs. Jason Arndt WWF Raw 1/9/95

ER: This felt like an important note to hit, as it was Mantaur's Raw debut, and it was against a guy I really like in Jason Arndt (the future Joey Abs/C&A candidate with the Mean Street Posse). So it's a big debut against a guy I like, and it's a fun squash! It's under 2 minutes, and Mantaur does a lot of running avalanches and body attacks, which is obviously something he *should* be doing. His avalanches look good, and the running body attacks could use a little more quick burst. Think of Vader leaping into someone with his belly, his arms also move forward as if he's hurling his body at his opponent, even though he's not attacking with his arms. Mantaur just runs in belly first, arms outstretched, and it looks kind of funny. But he's got a nice powerslam, and an amusing standing splash (not leaping so much as just falling onto Arndt). There is still some fire to this smoke.

Mantaur vs. Leroy Howard WWF Raw 1/23/95

ER: Our next logical step was Mantaur against a BattlArts guy. Howard is a large guy who did mostly job work on US TV but somehow got the BattlArts gig as Rastaman. This is another Mantaur squash, and we get a bunch more really nice avalanches, a big belly to belly, and two great spots where he catches a Howard crossbody and gives him a big powerslam. The first was really impressive, with Mantaur catching a crossbody off the top rope like he was Mark Henry, and the next was catching a crossbody running off the ropes. So the power spots look good and the avalanches look crushing, and he committed nicely to a missed elbow. But he does seem to have trouble filling time, which can be problematic. There was a moment that looked very first year wrestler, where Howard was on the mat, Mantaur threw a half-hearted stomp, bent down to lift Howard but didn't, walked a couple steps away, looked around, walked back, and then picked Howard up. It looked like he got lost and didn't know what to do next, which is weird since his offense is almost entirely made up of avalanches and powerslams. A fat guy shouldn't ever get lost and wonder what to do to an opponent on the mat. Step on him. Drop an elbow. Sit on him. Do anything. The fire may be going out.

Mantaur vs. Razor Ramon WWF Superstars 2/21/95

ER: We get a chance to see Mantaur against a major name, but it does not go great for Mantaur. This is basically an extended Razor squash. And I get it. There weren't many guys the crowd was into more than Razor, and Mantaur was an egg shaped man who moo'd and wore Future Ronda makeup. The competitive parts were really fun and showed what this match could have been. There's a great early spot where Mantaur keeps shoving Ramon into the corner, only for Ramon to casually walk out and slap him hard. You don't see shoving a lot in wrestling, outside of Flair matches. It can be an effective way to build a spot. And when Razor takes over it's really fun. He hits a cool Rick Steiner bulldog off the middle buckle, and a nice back suplex that looked extra cool because it's a fat guy splatting on the mat from a back suplex, duh. I figured we weren't getting a Razor's Edge to finish, because holy cow (right?), but the actual finish is even more spectacular: Razor tosses Mantaur over the top to the floor like he was eliminating him from the Rumble, and Mantaur takes a HUGE bump, flying way past the rope and crashing hard to the floor, getting counted out. This was a major bump and totally made the match.

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

ER: This was actually really good, definitely the best match of the Mantaur that I've retroactively watched. This match shows the potential the Razor Ramon match had. Mantaur getting to maul Holly while Holly bumped effectively, with some peppered in Holly nearfalls and a triumphant Holly win, was a really fun match structure. Mantaur got to show his power and did more nice elbow drops than he's done in what I've seen. He has a nice elbowdrop and should do it more. Holly bumped around impressively for all of it, good babyface. Holly takes an especially big bump to the floor and it was the first time I'd really seen Mantaur come off like a monster. Holly's comebacks were all good, with a convincing school boy and a really great missile dropkick that I don't remember him having. Mantaur really leaned into it and it added to the harder than average hitting feeling of the match. Mantaur loses in convincing fashion, but it felt like Holly got an upset. This was a good TV match.

Mantaur might actually be a thing.

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