WWF 305 Live: Double the Typhoon! Some of the Yokozuna! Papa Shango!

 

Typhoon vs. Papa Shango WWF Mania 3/6/93 - VERY GOOD 

ER: I thought this was really good, even though I barely think about these two existing on the roster in 1993. They were both there through most of the year but my brain doesn't associate them with that year, like they naturally stopped existing in 1992 while still showing up sporadically on TV for another year. Typhoon being around in 1994 is even weirder to me. This was 5 strong minutes of heart rate pushing stuff, and a real standout Papa Shango performance. There aren't many times I've typed the words "a real standout Papa Shango performance". Typhoon still had a good connection with crowds and knew what things would get big babyface reactions, and it looked cool seeing him bump the 300+ pound Shango. Shango really flew on shoulderblock attempts and this got better the more Shango leaned into finding ways to actually knock Typhoon down. 

Both men missed big elbowdrops close to each other's heads, and Shango gradually began moving Typhoon. By the time Shango threw a big punch to the mouth and a reared back 0.7 BattlArts headbutt, I was fully in. Shango even throws a full dropkick to Typhoon's chest, which isn't something he pulled out often. Typhoon had several moments where you can see that Earthquake rubbed off positively on his Natural Disaster partner, as I don't recall Typhoon leaning so heavily into the ropes before. Earthquake and Boss Man always have such ballsy trust in the ropes, and Typhoon has the movement down, stretching those ropes far out over the ring apron. There's a long sleeper section that could have ground this down but they pay it off big when Typhoon powers out and sends Papa Shango into a wild bump to the floor off a steamed up clothesline. The match proper ends with Shango hitting Typhoon with...I don't know, some kind of fucking voodoo stick or something, but some of the best hits come after the DQ. Shango deadlifts Typhoon with an impressive back suplex, and Typhoon flattens him with an awesome powerslam and elbowdrop. This was one of the higher watermarks for both men in 1993, worked with a real pleasant, unexpected chemistry. 

Yokozuna vs. Typhoon WWF Mania 4/10/93 - SKIPPABLE

ER: Why do they do this to us? The first ever meeting of these two and it goes less than two minutes, and Yokozuna never even looked mildly ruffled! You would think that, as the lone WWF representative of Japan, that he would already be nervous at the news of an incoming Typhoon. They should have made Yokozuna afraid of Typhoon the same way Andre was afraid of snakes; Fuji desperately trying to explain to his client that Typhoon is merely a man, not a weather disaster. Instead, Typhoon is treated like Dale Wolfe. They start great, with Typhoon crashing into Yokozuna with three big shoulderblocks, like so many waves crashing into Kagoshima, and while they put Yokozuna on his heels he manages to time out another and throws that Typhoon with a suplex that would have crushed Kyushu. That's a great start! And that is basically the match. Yokozuna punches Typhoon back into the corner, whips him into the opposite corner, Fuji distracts him, and Yoko counters the Typhoon with an avalanche then sits on the man's chest. This could have and should have been more. This felt like we were missing the last two acts of the match. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

Read more!

WWF Handheld Boston Garden 1/9/93

Our brave director missed the Crush/Skinner match that I really would have wanted to see, and also missed out on the Terry Taylor/Jason Knight match (which feels like a really weird match to be happening on a 1993 WWF house show), but managed to get the rest of the show:

Most of the Show

The Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc. 

ER: I was never a big Nasty Boys guy, but I think I might really like babyface house show Nasty Boys? Their face run was only about 6 months at the very end of their WWF run, but the Boston crowd being loudly into them and believing a title change could happen really made this match. It was a simple tag that didn't really have a lot of offense but built to a couple of very clever moments. Dibiase was good at running control, and things settled nicely into Money Inc. keeping Sags away from Knobbs by working over his back. Sags got knocked to the floor, got his back driven into the turnbuckles several times, had his back worked over with bearhugs from both guys, and the longer it went the more fans wanted to see Knobbs. There were two very unexpected beats in the match, cool ideas that Knobbs executed perfectly. 

We get an actual Nasty Boys pinfall that looks like a surprised house show title switch. Sags and Dibiase collided and both went down, referee included. Knobbs, instead of dragging Sags closer for the tag, just drags Sags out of the ring, wakes up the ref, and pins Dibiase. Crowd loses their minds, Jimmy Hart is on the apron freaking out, and of course the match gets restarted. Later in the match, Dibiase is still wearing down Sags, has him locked in a sleeper, and Sags is already down on his knees unresponsive. The ref lifts Sags' arm  twice and drops it lifelessly back down, and as the arm is getting lifted a third and final time Knobbs just sprints into the ring straight at Dibiase, who drops the sleeper to focus on Knobbs *just* before Sags arm would have dropped for the third time. The timing on the spot was excellent, and without the timing it would have looked bad for everyone involved. Sags' arm was clearly going down for a third time and if Knobbs was late it would have looked like an awful botched kickout. Instead, the visual was awesome, with Knobbs charging in and immediately taking the focus off the split second from loss Sags, who drops straight to the mat in a heap, no longer being held up by the ref or Dibiase. It's wild hearing a crowd of children chanting "NASTY! NASTY!" but these kids fucking love getting nasty. There's a good nearfall for the Nasties with a nice pin break by Dibiase, and just as we're about to see Sags get his revenge (awesomely dragging IRS up to a seated position by his necktie) Dibiase bashes him with the Halliburton to retain. My brain never thinks of the Nasties as a babyface team, but I really liked the vibes here. 

Undertaker vs. Papa Shango

ER: I love the theatricality of 1993 Undertaker, reaching back practically to the mat just to throw his big uppercuts, and I love how far Papa Shango bumps for them. Undertaker threw hard stomach kicks (never think of 1993 Taker when I think of great stomach kicks, but he throws them with a great downward angled shove) and some Kent Tekulve release point uppercuts, and this is almost entirely Shango bumping around for everything Taker does. I kept wondering if Shango was going to go on offense at all after Taker misses an elbowdrop as Shango rolled out of the way, but when Papa Shango  got up he walked right into a hotshot. I think my favorite part of the match was Shango bumping that hotshot all the way across the ring, winding up with his boots over the bottom rope. Papa Shango finally does take over on the floor (after maybe hitting Undertaker with the urn or his top hat or something in the corner) and hits Taker with a chair, then drops a couple nice elbows in the ring, finally gets to throw punches of his own (nice ones, too), and lands hard on his butt after a missed legdrop (great timing too, with Undertaker sitting up to avoid it). Undertaker powers up to his feet from a chinlock and hits a Stone Cold Stunner, which was not a thing I was expecting. The match wrapped up a little too simply after a Taker chokeslam, but I really liked the moments where you really got a sense of how large both guys were while slugging it out.  

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Typhoon

ER: This was an awesome Bigelow house show performance, and one of the best Typhoon singles match performances I've seen. They do a few things I wasn't expecting, and kept managing to surprise the people recording the show with cool exchanges (yet didn't get them to stop complaining about the lack of "highspots"). It starts with Bigelow being unable to budge Typhoon with shoulderblocks, so he tries a running crossbody and gets caught WAY high up by Typhoon and then planted with a front slam. Typhoon catching, holding, and slamming Bam Bam felt like a really big spot to go to so early in the match, and honestly felt like something they could have used as the finish. They work some surprisingly quick exchanges, with the best being Bigelow missing a hard charge chest first into the corner and getting slammed, then rolling to dodge a Typhoon elbowdrop, getting to his feet and dropping a headbutt, only to faceplant when Typhoon rolls out of the way. Great stuff. They tussle a bit, and Bigelow grabs Typhoon by the waist and flings him forward into the bottom buckle, and let me say that I LOVE when someone gets grabbed by their waistband and yanked into something and more people need to do that now. 

Bigelow tries to hold Typhoon down and work a front chancery, but in a wild spot Typhoon powers up and attempts a vertical suplex, but Bigelow shifts his weight and lands on Typhoon. It looked really dangerous and almost like Typhoon dropped Bigelow, but Bigelow went for the pin so quickly that it had to be the actual plan. Bigelow really bumps around for Typhoon, getting whipped hard into the buckles a few times and getting flattened when he tries to slam Typhoon and Typhoon just drops on him. Typhoon ran wild with lariats (including a big corner lariat), and really my only gripe is how sudden and tidy the finish is, with Typhoon catching boot on a charge and then Bigelow hitting the top rope headbutt. They really just went home with it and the match really could have soared with a Typhoon kickout and a couple extra minutes. Still, this match delivered and really showed the kind of impressive stuff Bigelow was doing when the TV cameras weren't watching. 

60 Minute Iron Man: Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: I have never actually watched any of the house show Iron Man Bret matches. I am a huge Bret fan, a guy whose work so far holds up better than almost all of his contemporaries, and huge iron man matches against Flair and Owen have existed on tape since before an old tape trader like me had ever traded on tape. However, the Bret/Shawn iron man match is one of the worst Great Matches in history, an opinion that is far less controversial today than it was 20 years ago. I can't imagine there is a Bret match in existence that I would not watch before watching that WrestleMania main event again, and that alone has probably been the main reason that - until now - I have never seen the other available Bret iron man matches. It's far easier - and more interesting - to see how many 8-15 minute gems Bret had with literally every member of the WWF roster over a decade plus stretch, than spending 60 minutes on one potential gem. But here we are, no turning back now. We've reached the monster at the end of the book. 

One thing this match has over the 1996 match is how bizarre it is that it even happened. 1993 WWF was focused directly at the eyes of 8-12 year olds. A match *guaranteed* to go an entire hour is the literal last thing 8-12 year olds would want to see at a pro wrestling show, and I imagine there were some parents who got dragged to a wrestling show against their will who suddenly found themselves faced with a full hour of one wrestling match. Shows what I know, as over the course of this hour long match the crowd only got louder, only hated Flair more, and only rooted harder for Bret. This match really blows up the theory that people were leaving the Shawn/Bret match in droves because they "just weren't ready for a match that was advertised to be an hour long". I assumed that old talking point would apply here, but the crowd interest did not dip the entire match, growing loud for all if Bret's comebacks but staying invested during limb work and submissions. I would love more insight into the mindset of running this gimmick at house shows, seeing it succeed, and then not ever using the stipulation for a Coliseum Video taping. 

This was a strongly built 60 minute match that felt shorter than its one hour, which is a strong point in its favor. The first 30 was simple house show work, strong body selling from both, and the kind of attention to crowd work that you'd expect. Bret even started things chippier than normal, slapping Flair to break in the corner, which I thought was notable as Flair had done nothing untoward to earn that slap. I could just hear Jesse Ventura griping about this on commentary. There's strong work around hammerlocks, with Flair wrenching one in before reaching down and picking Bret's ankle to loud WHOOOOOS. The pro-Flair contingent was quite loud through the first 20 minutes, never really turning on him but eventually getting drowned out by the louder pro-Bret fans. Flair is good about begging off in good spots peppered into this hour, with the first (and maybe my favorite) when they go back to standing hammerlock exchanges and Flair snaps Bret to the mat by pulling his hair, but backpedals quick when Bret kips up immediately. Bret had some great selling around being whipped into the turnbuckles, but not from his usual chest first bump (which came much later). Flair had taken over with stomach kicks and whips, and Bret hit the buckles and slowly dropped to his knees like his arms went temporarily numb. Bret had small touches like that through the entire match, and it felt like Flair's selling was stronger as well (and I've seen plenty of long Flair matches where that gets thrown out the window). 

Flair works a long hammerlock with his feet on the middle rope, really milking the rope cheating to get the crowd out and angry. Heenan would intentionally cause a disturbance on the floor, and whenever Earl Hebner would go quiet him down not only would Flair continue using the ropes to cheat, but he would rake at Bret's eyes. Flair did all the tricks really well, making sure the ropes shook just enough when he would remove his feet, enough for Earl to be suspicious but not enough to get him to actually do anything.  Flair threw chops in the corner and Bret came firing out with great right hands, backing Flair into a different corner and climbing the buckles for 10 count punches, only for Flair to drop Hart with an inverted atomic drop so impactful that I have to assume Bret was working this iron man match with Iron Balls. Fantastic atomic drop. Bret finally takes over when he rolls out of the way of a Flair elbowdrop, gives Flair a big backdrop, and starts working a figure 4 to loud cheers. Flair made it to the ropes and Bret took him right back to the mat with a nice vertical suplex and middle rope Hitman elbow, then went back to the figure 4. Flair wisely goes back to Hart's eyes, and Flair going to the eyes was something that got played up the entire match, always the thing Flair could reliably go back to, always a thing that would make the crowd angrier every time it happened. After raking Bret's eyes, Flair was a real asshole and threw headlock punches right into the eye he snagged (and would hold the headlock so the punch to the eye was obscured from Hebner's view). 

They manage to do a great job shifting the momentum of this match very believably, with neither guy in control for too long and all the transitions being simple things that made sense (and most of Flair's transitions back to offense were from eye rakes). There's a great sequence where Flair nails his big kneedrop and comes up limping theatrically, but still goes for another only to miss, and find himself right back in the figure 4. Bret works a legbar and a couple rolling leg snaps, but Flair tosses him through the ring ropes by yanking on his waistband (see Bigelow/Typhoon from earlier). Bret makes it back in with a sunset flip but Flair stays on his feet walking backwards alllllllll the way to the other side of the ring, then uses the ropes for stability as he punches Bret to break, eventually leading to a huge delayed back suplex (I love when Flair works suplexes into his game). Flair seems in control but Bret gets the surprise first pin after an Irish whip and missed clothesline allows him to get a very slick O'Connor Roll around 27 minutes in.

Flair begs off and gets a cheap 1 count to restart, but nicely counters a Bret side headlock with a nasty knee breaker, then starts tugging on Bret's leg like he wants that leg separated from Bret's hip. If you wanted to rip a man's leg clean off his body, I don't see it looking much different than what Flair was doing to Bret here. Flair worked a figure 4, eventually getting Bret to tap around the 35 minute mark when Flair grabbed the middle rope for leverage. Great - possibly unintentional - when Bret taps out on Hebner's knee, but then grabs Earl's leg right after to try to get him to notice Flair holding the ropes, tripping Hebner and giving Flair time to get off the ropes undetected. Bret is great at selling the leg, bumping and crumbling in fine ways as Flair throws pointed kicks right at the patella before, locking in another figure 4 to draw ANOTHER tap less than 3 minutes after the prior tap. It's real smart psychology to go right back to a submission that just got you the fall in an iron man, but it's not often you actually see someone getting a logical tap like this and I loved that they did it to put Flair up 2-1.

Flair drapes Bret's leg over the middle rope and throws kneelifts into his inner knee and thigh, drops him hard with a headlock punch, and I love how Bret takes hard drops from corner punches the way a 1968 French Catch babyface sells uppercuts in the corner, falling with one limb draped over a rope, looking like a man who is actively being aided by the ropes. We get a nice throwback to early in the match when Bret fires back with punches from the same corner of the ring where he first tired of Flair's bullshit, leading Flair to hit another knee breaker. Bret absorbs the knee breaker and feels it, but as he's bumping the knee breaker he manages to grab Flair's head of hair and smash him with a headbutt, sending Flair down to the mat with him. They have a nice punch out and Flair gets whipped upside down into the buckles, runs the length of the apron to the top rope, gets caught with a punch to the stomach on his axe handle attempt, then dropped with a vertical suplex. Flair working with a lead is a fun thing, as he starts cheating in different ways while still keeping the classics, and a Flair mule kick gets a great angry reaction from the now loud Bret crowd. There's a firm denial to Hebner, but that mule kick to Bret's iron balls will not be enough to go up 3-1. Flair starts going for a bunch of quick falls, and there's a great bit where he has his legs over the middle buckle while going for four straight pins, Hart nudging his shoulder up each time, and this crowd is getting tired of all of this rope cheating. 

They fight over a real solid backslide that looks like it could tie things up, and as Hart bears in on Ric in the corner after the kickout, Flair does the most cool, casual, perfect eye poke you've ever seen, strutting out of the corner past Bret and his closed up eyes. Bret just stormed up to him and Flair poked him in the eye as easily as he slapped a thousand stewardesses on the ass. Flair hits a nice vertical suplex, but gets caught and slammed off the top when he goes up. Hart moves to recover in a corner, and when Flair throws a big knife edge Bret pulls the straps down and gets Flair to beg and backpedal all the way to the opposite corner. Fans react huge to the straps coming down, and Flair takes some of his biggest bumps of the match on this hopeful comeback, including an even higher backdrop than earlier. Bret really drags him to the mat with a neck wrenching bulldog, hits the backbreaker, another Hitman elbowdrop, but Flair will not stay down and time is getting short. Bret keeps upping his offense and hits a superplex (while also selling the damage that he took delivering the suplex so well) and evens things up 2-2 with the Sharpshooter with just 5 minutes left, causing children to literally jump up and down in the aisles. 

Bret sets Flair up for another superplex (which I thought was interesting within the match, to go back to the superplex instead of going back to the sharpshooter the way Flair went right back to the figure 4) but Flair rakes at the eyes AGAIN, then nails Bret with a loaded fist. You see, after Bret tied things up, Heenan got in the ring to cause a big stir, but slyly slipped something into Flair's hand while checking on him. Flair made strong use of the weapon, distracting Hart by going to the eyes first and then putting him down hard when Bret staggered back towards him. Bret took a hard flat back straight body bump, going down like someone who has been hit with a weaponized fist. It's not enough to beat Bret, and we get a nice throwback to that earlier blocked sunset flip, with Bret once again landing one and not giving Flair time to back out of it, instead pantsing Flair to finally get him down to the mat. This is not stooging bare ass Flair, as Ric responds angrily to having his ass bared in Boston, going right back to yanking at Bret's leg and spinning into a figure 4....which leaves him wide open for a small package with 15 seconds to go, giving Hart the 3-2 win and making a hot Garden crowd lose their minds. 

This was a really great iron man match, great enough to at least be arguably better than their title change match. I usually lean towards a tighter match, but they did a really great job filling 60 minutes and that is an impressive feat. Both men looked great on offense, and both sold compellingly enough for a crowd of all ages to stay engaged. Bret was really credible at selling all of Flair's cheating, doing some genuinely great physical acting that put over exactly how Flair was gaining an advantage. Flair's cheating wouldn't have been half as effective at drawing heat without Bret kicking his heels into the mat and really struggling through every hold, not to mention his excellent move-appropriate bumping. Flair had a great performance too, one of his best in WWF. He looked like he was in his absolute comfort zone here, knowing exactly how to work these 5,800 people into a lather while hitting all the expert notes his fans would want. He had so much charisma here and knew how and when to play it to the crowd or play it to one specific person. The match peaked in great ways and made it feel like any result was in play, and that's going to keep it above most iron mans. 

Because, for all the stories we've heard about working 60 minutes every night 8 nights a week in front of 10,000 loud fans, there are only *so many* great 60 minute matches, and this is one of them. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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 1

Doink vs. Mr. Perfect WWF Superstars 5/1/93

ER: I remember really liking their series throughout the KOTR tournament when I saw this as a kid, and I'm still interested to see what they bring in their other tournament matches, even though overall this match did not work for me at all. The ring work itself isn't much of a problem, but the pacing and layout and big ugly commercial break are all kinds of wack. The match is basically split in half, pre commercial and post commercial. In the 1st half it's Mr. Perfect absolutely reigning down terror on Doink, just mercilessly kicking Doink's ass around the ring and tearing apart his leg, dropping knees on his leg, trying to yank his leg out of socket, just punishing him. And Doink is selling this leg injury and literally on the mat pleading for Perfect to let up. And Perfect rips apart Doink's leg for so long that Doink clearly looks like a babyface, and the crowd gets noticeably quiet as Perfect keeps ripping at this evil clown's leg. The layout is completely baffling, because it's so dominated by the babyface that  it will then obviously lead to the evil clown valiantly fighting back on one leg. But they do us even worse than that, as they go to a commercial when Doink spills - again - to the floor, desperate to get away from the cruel Mr. Perfect.

And, of course, when they return from break, Mr. Perfect is laid out on the floor and Doink is back in the ring. They do not show us how the tide turned, all we know is that Doink got zero offense for the first half of this match, then SOMETHING happened, and Mr. Perfect was now hurt. I hate it. So then the back half is Doink going fully on offense, nobody is talking about Doink's bum wheel, and Doink is doing nothing but taking high leaps off the top rope and landing on his feet. Doink does a big axe handle to the FLOOR and another axe handle into the ring, and that whole match before the commercial break feels like it came from an entirely different match. Perfect starts pulling off nearfalls down the stretch, getting convincing falls off a small package and fighting into a backslide, but even then they come off like Doink is the babyface narrowly avoiding defeat. This match is so fucking weird. Perfect gets several nearfalls on Doink and the power structure in this match is so bizarre. Doink looks like he is valiantly surviving and Perfect looks like he's panicking to put Doink away, it's all so disconnected from the match they should have been working. The bell rings just as Perfect hits the Perfect Plex, which leads to more confusion and an angry crowd once the time limit draw is announced. This whole match was structured seemingly to confuse and irritate the crowd, the kind of match where the ring work looks strong but nothing either character does makes sense. Very annoying.


Lex Luger vs. Bob Backlund WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/2/93

ER: This was good, the proper way to work a basic face vs. heel qualifying round match, only making me wish we got way more heel Luger in WWF. Backlund flusters him to start, immediately going for a nice inside cradle and high angle backslide, sweeping Luger's legs out from him as he charges in, and the crowd is fired up by the simple heel/face formula. Luger is also someone really great at complaining his way down the aisle when he is flummoxed, really knows the level of ham to be employing on those aisle walks. We've all seen a ton of wrestlers doing aisle walks, but Luger's body language stands out in a specifically strong way. He's got the perfect posture of a man with all of the physical advantages anyone could possibly ever need, yet still finding every reason to act like he's at the disadvantage. I love how Backlund also immediately picks up where he left off when Luger gets back in the ring, immediately getting him in the corner and about to mount punches, and I loved Luger's sharp back elbow out of the corner that finally put him in control. Luger concentrates mostly on elbow strikes until Backlund's comeback, which is something I think Luger does well.

Backlund had weird timing in 1993. At first I wasn't sure where the cross-ups were coming from, but the more I go back and watch '93 Backlund the more I see guys getting crossed up by his timing. He releases too quickly on hip tosses (following through far too quickly for anyone to have completed their bump) and his dropkick positioning is too far back. He did these same two things to Razor Ramon in their WrestleMania match and it made both of them look like goofs. Luger handled it better here than Razor did there, and the finish of this one is strong for a count out. Luger pushes Backlund off to the floor after Backlund runs him into the ropes with a prawn hold - Backlund taking a real nice crashing bump through the ropes to the floor - and when Backlund gets back on the apron Luger just annihilates him with the metal plated elbow. Backlund flies deep into the aisle and there is no chance of him making it back in time to beat the count. Luger was awesome during the ref's count, acting exhausted while draping his arms over the ropes, like he had just been through a war. Big fan of this match. A well played qualifier.


Razor Ramon vs. Tito Santana WWF Superstars 5/8/93

ER: Quick match, under 4 minutes, but laid out smartly and efficiently for the time. One of my favorite things about Santana during this era is the different ways he would utilize the flying forearm. Since he wasn't winning a ton of matches in '93 he wasn't using it to win, but he would still find ways to smartly peak reactions around it. He smartly used it for crushing nearfalls, but here he went to it almost right away and got a HUGE reaction from the crowd. This era WWF fan really responded well to babyfaces. On the episode of Raw preceding this show there was a long Duggan/Michaels match, and the fans lost their minds for Jim Duggan. Here Tito got a great reaction during his entrance and the fans would get loudly behind him every time he was in control. When he hit that forearm the crowd flipped, Vince flipped, and Razor barely got his boot on the bottom rope. Great placement from everyone. And because Tito Santana is great and wrestling in 1993 wasn't a bunch of twee theater kids, Tito just starts raining down fiery mounted punches on Razor instead of looking at the ref with a "please don't piss on me" face. The strike exchanges were strong and Tito is good at working over arm wringers, plus one of Razor's great unheralded strengths is selling things like arm wringers. Razor is a strong "on your feet" salesman, the kind of guy who is better at dancing in place than most. Razor takes over with a big hotshot and throws some big stomps into the side of Tito's head. I would have liked a more dynamic finish, but the finish we got was good in terms of the characters involved. Tito had Razor reeling and went to the top for a crossbody (and the fans were reallllly buying into a Tito win here) but Razor rolled through the crossbody and held the tights. It's odd that Razor wasn't given a cleaner win, but it all made sense from a character standpoint.


Papa Shango vs. Jim Duggan WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/9/93

ER: Not great, but nobody was watching this one with Great Match Theory in mind. Shango is big and has the greatest makeup possible, Duggan is stunningly over, and they both throw strikes that aren't nearly as good as they should be. 1993 Duggan was getting big loud reactions from fans everywhere, and even though I lived through and watched this era I am still surprised at how fans were into every single thing about this guy. I like Duggan, but I just didn't remember him getting top of card reactions in 1993 (even with the Yokozuna stuff). Some nights Duggan lays in punches and comes in harder on shoulderblocks, but on nights like this he throws his punches slower and lighter and pulls way back on clotheslines. Charles Wright is weirdly one of the lighter big man workers in history, a guy who always looked like he should absolutely murder a guy but instead would hit so so axe handles and clubbing offense. Shango goes over for a nice backdrop and then lay around in a Shango chinlock for awhile, and eventually Duggan hits the 3 point clothesline for a clean win. They can't all be winners, but the fans were into this. The people in 1993 knew what they wanted, and they wanted to yell about the USA.


Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Typhoon WWF Raw 5/10/93

ER: It's really good to know Vince and I are on the same page, as he flat out says "talking about the beef". Now, I skimmed back in the episode to hear what I missed, and I'm not certain anyone was ever talking about beef. I have no idea what anyone could have been said concerning "all that beef", to get Vince to bring up that damn beef, but he's sure not wrong. This is filled with big beef slamming into each other. Some of the strikes were a little lacking (there was a miscommunication on one, other times Bigelow throws these not punches/not forearms that were disappointing), but all the good stuff was there. Typhoon hits a big bodyslam, Bigelow hits an even bigger bodyslam and a super impressive back suplex (Typhoon never looks like he goes up easy for offense, so this lift was quite a feat)...and in an amusing moment Typhoon springs back to his feet to hit a lariat that sends Bigelow FLYING out of the ring. He went through the middle ropes so quick and he just dropped out of view, swallowed by the earth. We got two different fun moments of each man trying to get back in the ring (dug Typhoon's knees first bump dropping onto the ring steps), and the finish is cool with Bigelow muscling him up AGAIN, this time for a big ass Samoan drop (which Vince points out was Bigelow sending a threat to Tatanka) and hitting the diving headbutt. This was what you'd want. Also, nobody makes mention of the fact that this was a battle of Fire vs. Water, which feels like the exact reason you have a soundbite guy like Savage out there.

Read more!

Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Rampage '92

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

Razor Ramon vs. The Undertaker

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

Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

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

40 Man Battle Royal

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

Rick Martel vs. Tatanka

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

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

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

Tito Santana/Virgil vs. Money Inc.

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

Repo Man vs. Randy Savage

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

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

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


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

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Survivor Series Showdown 1992

ER: I have a feeling Phil might sit this one out, but these kind of drops are the kind of thing I adore. Obviously there should have been a Berzerker match on here somewhere (seriously why was he booked so strongly but rarely involved in PPVs or PPV build?), but this is an era that will always score major nostalgia points with me.


Big Boss Man vs. Nailz

MD: This was actually pretty good. Bossman had complete presence by this point. It's not hard to make the argument that he has a better WWF portfolio of matches than WWF Dibiase, but you watch this and wonder if he wasn't a better "ring general" too. They'd been working since July and it showed. Very smooth all around. The long goozle in the middle was a bit much but Bossman's comebacks were good and the finish, while cheap, more or less worked. Honestly, Nailz moved around a lot better than I remembered him.

ER: This is exciting because it's the first time we've ever written about Nailz on Segunda Caida. We wrote about him a lot on our proto-SC blog "Nailz in the Coffin" but not on here. This also feels like the best time - maybe the only time - to mention that a kid I went to school with thought Nailz was also Dauber on the TV show Coach. And this match rules because a ton of it is based around punches to the face. Nailz gets written about as a big lug, but he bumped around perfectly for Bossman, threw heavy punches back, and was right where he needed to be for everything. Bossman really came off like a force here, moving so quick, throwing the best right hands to punch Nailz into position (seriously there were at least two moments where he just threw right hands to move Nailz to where he needed him. Bossman takes a nice bump into the ring steps, sets up a fun slam dunk hot shot on Nailz, misses a big splash, gets a nice nearfall off a spinebuster slam, actually press slams Nailz off him on a kickout like Nailz was some cruiser, but you came for those big right hands and you left satisfied.

Jimmy Garvin interview:

MD: This is mildly historic, one of those things that always stood out when looking through the results, an oddball "did you know?" It was brutal. Garvin could work the crowd, but Gene kept wanting him to work the camera. He could get heat, but his means of doing so was taunting Gene's affinity for females. Add in the fact that he kept trying to get the last word in a way that killed the flow of things and that he refused to go into detail on any of his heel-specific predictions and it's no wonder (though likely a shame) that this didn't become an actual gig. The alternate reality where Garvin is an office guy twenty years later instead of Hayes is strange and confounding.

ER: I think Garvin got into the swing of the interview style pretty quickly. Early on he was definitely cutting Gene off in the wrong spots and not hitting his marks, but a couple minutes in he was picking up on camera changes and improvising his amusing support for every heel. I thought it was funny when he tossed out "Now I'm not a guy who respects many people, but..." and then of course talked up all the heels. I thought Garvin was getting smoother the longer he went, and this felt more successful than any of the sleek goofs they throw on TV today. I assume what did him in was throwing in two separate jokes about Gene hooking up with jailbait.

Bret Hart vs. The Mountie

MD: So, last month, we saw that 30 second Ron Garvin match that was absolute perfection. This isn't quite as good, but it's sure close. As I understand it, Rougeau walked out of the company after this match (in part because of it?). If he did, you'd never know it from watching. He was a consummate pro, completely into the moment and working with what they'd given him. Jimmy Hart's out with him and he does a perfect rendition of his chorus. Then, when Bret comes out, he points at him as the match is starting and says "This is going to be your shortest match in the history of the WWF because I'm the Mountie...", tries for a cheapshot a moment later, gets blocked and eats an immediate Bret German with a bridge for the three. After the match he complains about the bell not ringing yet. Perfect farewell. What a pro. This was absolutely nothing but it was probably the most special thing the fans saw that night.

ER: Big fan of every second of this. I'm also curious about the reasons behind Jacques walking out, since he was back the next year anyway with Pierre. How many guys walked out of WWF and then just came back 6 months later with a push? But we get a great Mountie sing-a-long, Rougeau hitting all the notes and really hamming up his greatest of all time theme song, tries to cheapshot Hart and gets immediately caught, eats a perfect German suplex for the pin, all of it so good. Rougeau is a guy I would have loved to see in an extended John Tatum role.

Virgil vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

MD: This was Bam Bam's first match back and he got a nice enough welcome. It was what I was looking forward to the most from the listings, and it came off as a little disappointing accordingly. It wasn't due to Virgil, who was doing next to nothing at this point, one year removed from his big Million Dollar Belt push, and primarily just killing jobbers on Superstars and Challenge. Go back and watch some of those from this era. That meant I wasn't surprised at all when he kept laying shots into Bam Bam during the arm control that was the brunt of the match. Unfortunately, the second Bam Bam took over, there was a weird ref touch and an immediate DQ, because if this thing was an actual match, it could have been pretty good. I did like Bam Bam on the way out complaining that "it was in the heat of the moment" in his over the top Jersey accent.

ER: This really was shaping up to being a cool match before the DQ which nobody could have even seen happen. Most people probably thought it was the quickest count out ever, just a confusing and messy way to end a match. Up and until the sudden and disappointing finish we had the start of something special. Virgil was really relentless and had to of bruised up Bam Bam's shoulder the way he was striking it. Virgil would wrap Bigelow's arm around the ropes, swing hard at it, get pinballed away, and come back gunning for that arm. The shots were tough and both guys were working kind of off rhythm so you saw them swinging at the same time, not really a style in WWF at the time. Virgil took a huge flapjack and Bigelow threw a dropkick right into his gut (intentionally, it wasn't just Bigelow not getting up for it), but that DQ was a bummer.

Razor Ramon vs. Randy Savage

MD: This is probably the best match I've seen between the two and the sort of thing that could have made a WWF 1992 permanent tape back in the day. The brunt of this was Ramon working over the leg, after earning it, with Macho selling huge, even in his comebacks, and Ramon utilizing some great, targeted cutoffs. The finish was novel as Ramon rolls out to avoid the elbow only for Savage, bad leg and all, to leap off the top rope after him on the floor. We miss that due to the stationary nature of the camera, but it made for a believable finish where Ramon could beat the count but Savage couldn't. The post-match assault was maybe unnecessary but they were putting heat on Ramon before Survivor Series.

ER: I really dug this too, and am only annoyed that our camera operator was asleep at the wheel, making us miss Savage's (presumed) axe handle to the floor and their earlier floor brawling. He moved the camera around the catch all of the Bossman/Nailz floor fighting, but was dozing for much of this. This was a really cool version of the "Savage gets no offense until the last move" formula Savage match, as it actually has substance to lead to Savage's one move. That's usually just about my least favorite formula out of the established big star formulas, as Savage would take a 5 minute beating and then basically get a bodyslam and big elbow to win. Here Ramon punches him around the ring and starts working that leg, and let me tell you that Razor had one of the absolute BEST, SMOOTHEST, and downright vicious leg attacks: He hits a drop toehold and all in one motion rolls through it, locks calves with Savage, and snaps it off. I don't know if I've ever seen that sequence pulled off smoother, even by someone like Eddie. Savage really sells that legwork, limping around like a lady with a broken high heel, Razor sweeping his leg in the ring, Savage chasing him on one leg around the ring, all of it great. I wish the camera had panned back a couple of times, but other than that this was house show style gold.

Bret Hart vs. Papa Shango

MD: This was during that first month of Bret's run where they put him over a bunch of guys (Kamala, Virgil, etc.). This was not the Charles Wright you remember. He started the match with a leap over the top rope to the apron and a sneak attack on Hart as he was giving the glasses away and he didn't look back. Yeah, there was the shoulder nerve hold, but he was eating back body drops and the big transition spot was him missing an elbow drop off the top. I don't ever remember seeing him so mobile. Bret came off like a champ (though maybe an IC champ?), constantly fighting back and ultimately taking it clean with a submission. I get why they'd think that someone as outlandish and monstrous as Shango submitting would be a big deal to get Bret over, but it just felt weird and out of place. Unbelievable. He just got his hat back on and did his funny walk to the back afterwards as Bret celebrated.

ER: This was no different than any Bret Hart Coliseum Video matches from this era, which means it was a match that was totally up my alley. I really loved that Kamala match that Matt mentioned, and this one is probably even better. Shango leaps off the apron at Bret to start, boxing his ears while Bret was just trying to give his glasses to a(nother) kid, and I certainly can't recall a Shango match where he leapt off the apron at someone to start a match. And we get a few smart exchanges near the ropes, really well laid out stuff: I loved Hart hitting a big running crossbody for a pin, Shango presses Bret through the ropes to the floor on the kickout, but Hart rolls right back in to hit an atomic drop, giving Shango the perfect amount of time to to a full 360 while selling his balls while Bret is sprinting off the opposite ropes to clothesline Shango to the floor. That's a great sequence and Hart barreling into Shango with that clothesline felt like a huge moment. I dug how they integrated Hart running chest first into the buckles, Hart holding his chest throughout the rest of the match, and Shango doing simple things like throwing stomps right to the chest and dropping elbows. Another layer that made that so smart is it focused Shango's attack on Hart's chest, which lead him to go for the risk of a 2nd rope elbow that he missed, leading to Hart's big comeback. That simple kind of linear chapter 1 to 2 to 3 stuff seems like it should be easy, but it must not be because guys get lost within whatever story they're trying to tell all the time. But here's Hart setting up the chest injury, here's Shango taking the opportunity and focusing wholly on the chest, and here's that chest injury somehow working to Bret's advantage. I dug how they integrated all the turnbuckles into the action, playing to every side of the arena: Bret ran chest first into the upper left, Shango ran him into the lower left, Shango missed his big elbow off the lower right, Bret came off the upper right; it's a cool performance technic and it's a professional thing that Bret doesn't get enough credit for. Bret's attack was nice, and the backdrop was cool in that he just ducked his shoulder right into Shango's waist, sending him more over as a purposeful hockey trip than a showboat high backdrop.

And, I'm glad Matt also noticed the absolutely wonderful post match visual of Papa Shango just...gathering himself. Like a vaudeville team packing up their trunk, we get the gift of seeing Papa Shango collect his garments, in a too real agony of defeat moment. "Big chunky necklace goes on first, gotta put that on before my hat, make sure to grab my voodoo stick, get my strand of skulls..." It's one of the hazards of coming out with seven different accessories and seemingly no ring boy to run all your shit to the back. So here's a vanquished voodoo priest carrying his gimmick away, stopping once to point and shake his fist at Bret, then just walking away. It was a tremendous humanizing look at performers, your favorite guitarist putting his pedals away after the lights have come up.

Nailz vs. Ultimate Warrior

MD: This was disappointing in how short it was. I was expecting something all time bad and we got a blip. Nailz goozled. Warrior spasmed. The transition was a few kicks out of the corner and Warrior hit his clotheslines and the shoulder/splash. You get the feeling that they could have had something memorably terrible and that they couldn't have anything that was at all good, but this wasn't the former; it was only barely the latter. I do foresee a time in a year or two when WWF has exhausted a lot of the Georgia/AWA footage and most of what they have left for Gems are these taping dark matches. It's nice to have one of these now and again but I wouldn't want it every week.

ER: Yeah this was basically the Warrior/HHH Mania match, except there we at least got a press slam spot. This surely gave the fans at the taping something they wanted to see, which was Warrior running out to his music, shaking things, and eventually doing rope running into a couple of moves. I was excited to see what they could do in a 5 minute match - even moreso after seeing what Bossman did with 5 minutes of Nailz not one hour earlier - but this was a quick crowd pleasing Warrior match. Oh well.

Read more!

Berzerker Tried Blue Apron. What Happened Next Will SHOCK You!

48. Berzerker vs. Koko B. Ware - WWF 7/21/91

I had been trying to do this Berzerker project chronologically, but I was hoping there would be matches I hadn't noticed, or didn't know existed, that would crop up after I had "passed" them. So far, this is the only one, but it was one I was hoping made tape. Apparently this match only aired on a Canadian TV broadcast. It was taped in Canada, but this could also mean that WWF thought Vikings may have also come from Canada so were targeting that market. Or, they were targeting the niche Canadian POC ornithologist market. That market can be a tough one to crack, but brother they SPEND. Koko really wasn't getting any TV singles matches at this point, and it's kind of a wonder he stuck around on the roster long enough to land in High Energy the next year. If you look at what he was up to during '91, you would have expected him to be released at literally any point. 

But this match is super fun. Berzerker cared not about card placement when he worked guys, and Koko gets a good run during this, while Berzerker breaks out some things I haven't seen in any other match of his. Berzerker was pretty generous in this one (a running theme we've now seen a lot), doing his crazy bump to the floor off a Koko dropkick, and letting Koko get in his cool missile dropkick where he lands on his feet (which still feels like a wild spot to me). He worked in the splits bump (even though it took them longer to get on the same page, as Koko kept kicking at the wrong time. You gotta kick in a leg sweep way, and Koko didn't seem to be getting that at first). Berzerker put a pretty good mauling on Koko, showing off with his own high dropkick, locked on an absolutely brutal cravate, and won with a disgusting hotshot that really should have been his regular finisher. His cravat is rarely used but always looks awesome, and this one is probably the best one he ever did: One hand is smothering Koko's mouth while the top hand is twisting and pressing down, looks like something surly Kawada would do to a young punk. The cravat should have been a regular part of his moveset, with him twisting that head and HUSSing. And that hotshot? Fucking forget about it. Koko died. Berzerker caught him in a bearhug and just fell backwards into the ropes, and I'm surprised all three ropes didn't just snap under the weight of Koko's neck being forced down through them. The bump was so brutal, that Koko disappeared, only to emerge months later as a man with a sudden proclivity for baggy, checkered chiffon genie pants. Sad.

49. 40 Man Battle Royal - WWF Prime Time Wrestling 7/6/92

The situation in my own life, surrounding this match, could not have been any better, and I don't actually think it's possible for anybody else to enjoy it as much as I did. The stars aligned perfectly. I had several friends over, we had been playing video games, having drinks, eating snacks, some of us had special cookies, and the mood was fun. My pal Josh said he was in the mood for some 1992 WWF Prime Time. You know, that thing when your friend requests to watch syndicated 1992 professional wrestling? That thing. That may seem like an odd mood to be in, to some of you, but that mood is a familiar one for Josh. He adores 1991-1993 WWF/WCW. In fact, this Berzerker project lines up pretty exactly with his Liam Neeson-like specific set of skills. So yeah, the mood in the room was perfect. We each made our predictions, Tim chose Bulldog, Josh chose Bret, Charlie chose the Nasty Boys, and I naturally put my money where my mouth was and bet on Berzerker to take it all...

It's a short battle royal, just 10 minutes or so, but it's so good!! Not only does Berzerker win, but he puts in an amazing battle royal performance. What is second most notable, is that this is probably the best WWF performance from Skinner Steve Keirn (I should watch the Bret singles match as it's been literal decades since I've seen it). Now, half the entrants in this are jobbers, and they're all the first to go. Berzerker stays on the floor while the ring was full, and stomps around tearing up and eating signs from fans while 39 other guys are fighting in the ring. The first elimination is Berzerker just reaching up from the floor and pulling a jobber out over the top, then kicking his ass into the aisles. Kerry Von Erich then spends a minute hip tossing a half dozen other jobbers over the top, and Berzerker just waits on the floor to stomp on them right after they get eliminated! So everyone is still in the ring, and Berzerker is just meanly stomping eliminated jobbers in the back of the head and chopping them down the aisle. 

Once others start getting eliminated you notice how nasty some of the eliminations are: Kato takes a huge backdrop to elimination; the Beverly Brothers sacrifice themselves just to take out Bret, looking like they are shoot eliminating him as they yank hard on his legs and violently tug him to the floor; Berzerker gives Koko a mammoth backdrop to the floor to eliminate him. But then shit gets REAL when it's down to Skinner, Berzerker, Bulldog and Kerry von Erich. Skinner does a sick eye rake on Bulldog and Skinner/Berzerker team up to try to eliminate him, while KVE tries to pull Bulldog back in. Berzerker and KVE pull each other away and start going at it, leaving Skinner to eliminate Bulldog on his own. And this elimination HAS TO BE the crown jewel of Steve Keirn's WWF stint. Bulldog is desperately hanging on, and Skinner stomps the shit out of him, then holds onto the top rope with both hands to get leverage to push Bulldog out with his legs. Bulldog looks like he's legit trying to hold on but Skinner gets to just dominate him all the way to the floor. The entire room flipped out over that one. Shit was real. 

How tremendous is a final 3 of Berzerker, Kerry von Erich, and Skinner!?!? KVE valiantly fights them off, but Berzerker and Skinner attack with eye rakes and back rakes!! Skinner throws tons of stiff clubbing shots to KVE, really soaking in this final 3 appearance. KVE ducks a shot and Berzerker almost accidentally gets eliminated by Skinner, but then Keirn says fuck it and just tries to eliminate Berzerker! He survives, and then KVE and Skinner start fighting near the ropes, which is when Josh yelled "BERZERKER IS GOING TO ELIMINATE THEM BOTH!!!" By this point, everybody else's picks had been eliminated, and EVERYONE knew how much I'd been working on my Berzerker project. So the room was going wild for Berzerker, and when he won the bomb just went off. The whole room was flipping out. It felt like we all won that battle royal. There was literally no other day in my 36 years on earth that would have been a better time to watch this battle royal. It was perfection.

50. Berzerker/Papa Shango vs. Undertaker/Ultimate Warrior - 7/12/92

I really really liked this. It was pretty much just what you would want from this match. It was a fast 8 minutes, which meant that nobody got exposed (anybody know what is considered the best Shango/Kama/Godfather match? I can't recall ever seeing a match with him and thinking "now THAT'S a keeper", but they must exist, right?), and everybody could go go go, and they did. Berzerker/Warrior was a genuinely fun match up, and Warrior busted ass in this, as did Berzerker (I guess I had assumed that would happen though). Berzerker bumped all around for Warrior as if he was Savage or Flair, and Warrior ate a big boot really nicely. Shango and Taker were more background characters but the money was in the UW/Zerk showdowns. Another match where you can say with no argument that Berzerker worked harder than anybody else in the ring, really a super generous opponent. Considering 3 of these guys (well, really 4) weren't considered "workrate legends" during this time, this match was a blast.

"My Berzerker is at top of the WWF. He will take any opponent in ring and crush and make them suffer, including YOU Undertaker!" ~Mr. Fuji

"The people know! Now there's no doubt in the peoples' minds who the toughest wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation is! Well Undertaker, you had a taste of the Berzerker! Undertaker, how does it feel to get your cold, stinkin', white, ugly flesh beaten, dragged out and kicked on?? The Berzerker will not, cannot, and WON'T be stopped! Huss! Huss!" ~Berzerker

Undertaker vs. Bruce Mitchell ends quickly, but Undertaker doesn't get much time to celebrate as Berzerker comes stalking down the aisle. Paul Bearer is caught on the ring steps, and Mr. Fuji throws salt in his eyes! Bearer takes a sick backwards bump off the steps , rolling over and doing an awesome tumble. Fuji grabs the urn, and Undertaker grabs Fuji, so Berzerker rushes in to club Taker. Taker chokes Berzerker and Fuji hits him with a cane, which does not faze Undertaker, then Berzerkers throws salt into Taker's eyes!! They use it as a smoke screen to escape down the aisle.

51. Berzerker vs. Jason Knight - Superstars 7/20/92

Jason Knight has that sick ombre high top fade mullet. He looks like Brian Bosworth crossed with Buff Bagwell. He bumps nicely for Berzerker, springing back across the ring after Berzerker chokes him in the ropes. The rest is as you would expect. But this match is important because it is the RETURN of Berzerker throwing his opponent to the floor to win! Knight bumps it painfully by landing harder on one leg than the other.

52. Berzerker/Ric Flair vs. Undertaker/Randy Savage - 7/21/92

Look at this lineup right here! As far as I can tell this never aired on American TV, and it's all just weird. This is during Savage's reign as champ, but he's never mentioned as the champ or shown wearing the belt. Most of his time post WMVIII was spent wrestling Flair on house show runs in rematches, with a couple neat sounding matches that never made tape (or are on a Coliseum video I don't know about) mixed in. I'd love to see World Champ Savage vs. Kamala. You look at the names in this tag, and one of them is not like the other. Also of note, is that Berzerker is larger than the Undertaker, and this may be the smallest I've ever seen Savage. This was before the Zahorian steroid trial, but Savage just looked super tiny, you know, compared to pro wrestling physiques, and compared to his prior physiques. And for a long match, there really isn't a whole lot of Berzerker, or a whole lot of anything. This was almost a "night off" house show match, with oodles of charm just due to the star power of the workers, but not a lot of actual work. It IS a tremendous Flair show, and actually made me want to go back and see a lot more WWF Flair matches. The way he picks on Savage and the way he stooges for Undertaker are classic. Undertaker breaks out a couple of really great gorilla press slams, and I LOVE a great gorilla press slam. Sadly Berzerker doesn't get to do much, although he does take another one of his splits bumps, and is obviously in there to take a pin (after a nice Tombstone/Macho Man elbow combo, which is actually a nice thing to be pinned by as it showed the team thought they needed to pull out both moves to keep him down). An amusing match, and an excellent Flair performance, but something that could have been so much more.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE BERZERKER!

Read more!