The SmarK 24/7 Rant for All-American Wrestling - March 31 1985
- As a companion to the MSG show from two weeks before the first Wrestlemania, here's the episode of All-American (which begat Primetime Wrestling, which begat Monday Night RAW) that aired the night of Wrestlemania. I bet they're gonna be hyping Wrestlemania.
- Hosted by Mean Gene.
The British Bulldogs v. Rene Goulet & Barry O
The ring announcer calls him "Bobby O" to really rub in his jobber status. This is pretty near the debut for the Bulldogs. Goulet takes Dynamite down with an armbar to start, but Kid pops up and hiptosses him. Goulet takes him down again, but Kid bridges out and monkey-flips Goulet out for the tag. Over to Barry, and Davey Boy controls him with a headlock and armdrags. Kid with a slam for two and a crucifix for two. Goulet comes in and gets double-teamed by the Bulldogs, and Kid adds a gutwrench and a missile dropkick. Davey jumps over Kid with own missile dropkick, taking out Barry O as the crowd goes pretty crazy for a TV taping. Barry hits Dynamite with a clothesline, but Kid tags out to Davey and it's back to Goulet again. Davey quickly powerslams him for two, then puts Barry on his shoulders and Kid does the diving headbutt off them for the pin at 4:01 as the place goes insane. That was, dare I say, a Midnight Express-esque squash for them.
UPDATE! WITH LORD ALFRED HAYES! Alfred does this deadly serious introduction and then shows a video of JYD dancing with some kids. Now that's some hard-hitting journalism.
Big John Studd v. Jim Young
Didn't see many Studd squashes on TV for whatever reason. Bobby Heenan is carrying around $15,000 and a bag of Andre's hair. That's kind of creepy. Young tries for the bodyslam payoff right away, but Studd pounds him down and gets one before picking him up. He drops him on the top rope for two, but now Andre comes down to the ring and it's a DQ at 1:10. Andre kicks his ass and Studd gets out before any bodyslamming can occur.
Wrestlemania Update with Mean Gene, and he brings out Wendi Richter and Cyndi Lauper for their comments. Sadly Wendi doesn't get to talk and thus I'm robbed of my usual chance to mock her manly voice. She sounds like Steve McMichael, you see.
Mad Maxine v. Susan Starr
Maxine, who is 6 feet tall with a green Mohawk, was going to be set up as the next challenger for Richter and had a character model done for Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling and everything, but then she just disappeared and was basically never heard from in wrestling again. Maybe it had to do with Richter getting fired and the women's division collapsing on itself, I dunno. They call her 6'4", but that's how tall I am and Maxine is barely taller than the ref so I think they're exaggerating that one somewhat. Maxine takes Starr down a few times, but Starr gets a drop toehold and controls with a leglock on the mat. Maxine powers her down again and a suplex finishes at 2:34.
- Let us take you back to Piper's Pit, where Paul Orndorff calls Mr. T a "spider-monkey" and rubs a banana on his picture. Classy.
- And now for the other side of the story, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T journey to New York to see the sights, and then train for the Wrestlemania main event by going to Central Park to beat up muggers. Do they wear nametags or something? I am incredibly disappointed that we don't actually get to see them exacting vigilante justice to prepare for a professional wrestling match. T's camo gear is somewhat offset by Hulk's bright red leotard. And then it's off to the gym (with "Eye of the Tiger" helpfully dubbed over) for some latently gay training footage before they head to the subway, presumably to beat up more muggers. Although that's never confirmed one way or another.
Greg Valentine v. ???
I don't speak Bruno so I can't quite decipher the jobber name (Pompei?). Anyway, usual squash from Valentine, as he pounds the jobber with elbows and hits the chinlock. The jobber comes back with a takedown in the corner, but Valentine knees him down again and adds a suplex for two. Gutbuster and he chokes him out on the ropes, then works the leg with a half-crab before finishing with the figure-four at 4:30.
- Mean Gene brings in a clean-shaven Captain Lou and the US Express for final comments before Wrestlemania.
- Mean Gene does the final hard sell, wrapping things up one last time and doing a damn sight better job of it than any PPV that WWE has done in years. They've kinda lost the used car salesman approach that Gene used to bring, replacing it with video packages and that rock music all the kids are listening to. Sometimes the old ways are the best.
Next week: Ricky Steamboat & Jimmy Snuka v. Goldie Rogers & Terry Gibbs! British Bulldogs v. Matt Borne & Mr. X! Sadly, this was just a one-shot deal on WWE 24/7 and we'll never know who wins those epic clashes.
Now I kinda want to check out Wrestlemania again when it airs on 24/7 next week.
Related Posts:
- The SmarK 24/7 Rant for MSG – March 17 1985
- Biggest, Smallest, Strangest, Strongest
- The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – December 2 1981
- Maple Leaf Gardens – December 15 1985
- Black Saturday
Tags: 24, 24/7, Bobby Heenan, British Bulldogs, Greg Valentine, Hulk Hogan, Lost, Midnight Express, Monday Night RAW, MSG, Primetime Wrestling, RAW, Ricky Steamboat, TV, Wrestlemania, WWE
How times have changed:
http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/wwe/1228.html
I never remember WWE being this scripted!
This wasn’t like this back in the day was it?
I would guess not. But back then it was wrestling. Now it is the World of Sportz Entertainment (WWE=WSE).
I love how Barry O and Rene Goulet were such jobbers that they could wrestle against each other on the MSG show and team up here.
Very interesting about Mad Maxine. The History of WWE site shows that she had a grand total of two WWF matches, with this one being her debut. And Wikipedia says that she left because she was fed up with Moolah…which sort of makes sense since Richter wasn’t canned from the WWF until October or November (forget when the screwjob took place) and I don’t recall Richter having another big feud after WrestleMania.
I think Richter was going to feud with The Spider Lady that wasn’t Moolah. Awhile ago on a Tuesday Night Titans episode they Moolah as a guest who introduced The Spider Lady as her new protege. So they were briefly two separate people. Heck, when they showed the actual screwjob on a future TNT episode, Richter looked confused that Moolah was in the costume. So I think it was supposed to be someone different if Richter had re-signed.
I’m actually surprised that they showed the match on 24/7 since it was always one of those urban legends about a screwjob. I always thought it happened on a house show or something…not on MSG and then replayed a few times.
A quick search of wikipedia and google led me to Richter’s shoot where she said the Spider Lady was someone else and she was surprised to see Moolah backstage at that MSG show because Moolah usually didn’t show up when she wasn’t scheduled to wrestle. Makes me wonder why Richter didn’t know that something was up or about to happen but it’s wicked interesting. Especially since women’s wrestling would have been so different if Vince had continued pushing Richter as a star.
Moolah says it wasn’t in her book IIRC.
You know, watching the SNME DVD has been very enlightening. The knock on the 1980’s product has always been that while the characters and storylines were more interesting than what we tend to get today, the matches are supposedly better now because the workers are more skilled. And yet, watching stuff like Hogan vs. Race and DiBiase Senior vs. Savage makes me realize that sometimes simplicity is best. Doing a basic match with an easy-to-follow storyline is more effective than 90% of what WWE passes off as ‘epic’ today. And as much as WWE tries to promote themselves as having the most loyal and supportive fanbase in the world, those mid-1980’s crowds were far more into the actual in-ring presentation then. Sure, the crowd numbers are bigger and there’s more money in the coporate coffers, but when was the last time fans were as passionate and enthusiastic about the overall product?
Now I do realize that much of that excitement can be contributed to Hogan, but how often do the fans really care about the matches outside of the stuff like HHH/Orton or HBK/UT (and sometimes not even then)? I remember watching perfectly sane adults horrified that Hogan might actually lose the WWF title to The Genius, and now you put someone like Shelton Benjamin against HHH and no one believes for a second that the goddamned US Champion could win even in a non-title bout. The WWF/E Title used to be the most important thing in the so-called ‘WWE Universe’, and now the belt is basically an afterthought in what is being pushed as the main event of Wrestlemania this year.
I don’t know that you can blame any one thing for this issue (the lousy developmental system, the death of kayfabe, the ‘creative team’ running the shows as opposed to the agents, etc.), but the product seems to grow more boring and stagnant every year, and when they brand someone like Jack Swagger as the ‘next big thing’ or insist that the ultra-bland Ted DiBiase Jr. will be headlining WM in a few years, it doesn’t give me much hope for the future.
It’s just that they’ve fallen into a formulaic rut. They’ve been doing the same thing now with Raw is War and the monthly pay-per-views for 12 years now. The only time they changed things up was when they really split the brands and did the split PPVs so they were forced to push new guys, try new things and the product (in my opinion) was pretty from late 2002 to 2005, if you ignore Raw in 2003.
It’s not going to change because the formula makes the WWE enough money and they certainly aren’t about to change anything with the economy as it is.
They should do two things. 1) Bring back kayfabe on the TV shows. We know its fake, stop telling us it is. and 2) Surprise the fans with booking decisions. The Genius thing you mentioned above…people, even the sane ones, still thought the WWF could pull something on us. That’s what made the Attitude era so great. Now? Not so much.
The truth is that WWE encourages the blandness with overscripting (as shown in the first post in this thread) and a developmental systems that churns out bland musclehead after bland musclehead who all look and work the same. And I think the numbers for CM Punk’s title run showed that fans are willing to embrace something new and unique but WWE has to be willing to take those risks, especially since from a financial standpoint they’ve never been in a better position to do so.
And there’s also the matter of knowing when to take those risks and with whom. UT doing a clean job on free TV is all well and good and long overdue, but to give that rub to the hopeless Kozlov while simultaneously cutting several ROH alumni and giving up on Christian and banishing him to ECW before he even had a chance to get out of the starting gate speaks volumes about WWE’s warped perspective these days.
Am I the only one around here that actually LIKES Rhodes and Dibiase?
I like Dibiase in particular, actually. I can’t put my finger on it but he always seems like he’s working smart in there, actually thinking about the match and trying to beat his opponent instead of just setting up for big moves and doing springboards. Maybe it’s just me.
I also like Jack Swagger and although I’m not sure he’s the newest Next Big Thing I do think he’s decent right now with significant upside.
For blandness I look no further than Shelton Benjamin. Amateur accolades and general athletism notwithstanding, there is a guy that has done NOTHING of note except bland the place up for what, 6-7 years now? He used to be an athletically gifted but dreadfully boring black guy and now he’s an athletically gifted but dreadfully boring black guy with a blonde dye job – character development~!! And the interweb crew line up to fellate him and decry the injustice of him not being a 10 time grand slam champion by now. I hear it’s all creative’s fault and HHH for holding him down.
DiBiase Jr. is decent enough, but nothing about him stands out and while he does what he does very well, there’s no real difference between him and someone like Shelton, aside from the fact that Shelton has been around for a while. In a few years, I can see Ted in the same quagmire that Shelton is in right now, as someone who is ultra-talented and yet distinctly lacking in any real charisma or personality and thus stuck in the midcard rut. Time will tell, I guess.
And Swagger is just…there. He’s big and he’s got the amateur background, but he doesn’t have Brock’s presence or Angle’s intensity, which puts him in the same category as a Lashley (who was overpushed in comparison to his actual abilities) or even a Kozlov (ditto times one billion). And while he’s much better in-ring than the latter, he won’t get even a fraction of the push of the former for various reasons. Thus, (Vanilla Giant + 50/50 Booking) does not = (The Next Big Thing) or anything close to that.
All-American was actually a different show. It ran on Sundays while PTW ran Mondays (or Thursdays, I think).
Yes you’re right, All-American had nothing to do with Prime Time or Raw (besides being on USA). All-American was actually what begat Action Zone in 1994. And I think Prime Time was Tuesdays and then Mondays, or Mondays and then Tuesdays, I forget.
All-American wrestling was the Sunday afternoon/morning show on USA. I only remember that in 1992, when I was 10 and just getting into wrestling, it was on at noon on Sundays.
They start WWF Mania on Saturday mornings which begat Action Zone & Livewire. I think All-American became Superstars at the end.
Dammit, Wikipedia lets me down again.
Forget my previous comment….Sunday mornings went from All-American Wrestling to Action Zone to Superstars. Saturday mornings went from Mania to Livewire
Yep exactly, Superstars took over Sundays in 1996. For me it used to be on Saturdays at 12pm on FOX 5 and then again at 1pm on FOX29 (the Philly version; I live in Central Jersey so I get both), and sometimes Challenge would be on Saturdays at 12pm on FOX29. It was confusing as a kid. And then Mania was 10am on Saturday morning. And there was also briefly WWF Blast Off at 9am WGN, on Saturdays in 1996, before LiveWire. Lots of friggin wrestling.
FOX29 was my WWF source in the late 80’s. That and Maple Leaf Wrestling on CHCH out of Hamilton which was pretty much Superstars with a Toroto main event spliced in if I remember correctly. Lots of “Iron” Mike Sharpe.
So, have you heard who the next WWE Hall of Famer will be?
Koko B. Ware !!!
I’ll leave it to everyone else to comment in depth, but I hope this is a joke…
Hey, nobody got their ass kicked quite like Koko. Plus, PILEDRIVER~! So, why not?
Basically, if you wrestled during Hulkamania…you get in the Hall of Fame. Unless you’re an actual huge star like Savage, Roberts & Warrior and have heat with McMahon. I think the criteria should be…if they made a DVD devoted to you, would people buy it. Just imagine a Koko DVD.
Im more interested from the Raw preview of Triple H vs. DiBiase & Rhodes in a handicap match. I mean, would it be too much to just have DiBiase vs. HHH with tons of interference? Do we need the handicap match?
Seriously, why not? Koko will get a little recognition and a few bucks, which is more than he had last week. Yeah, Roberts and Savage should be in, but will the world end because a once-popular JTTS gets thrown a little bone?
I think WWE has done a decent job with the inductions till now. Koko? Who is next, Outback Jack? Another thing that makes no sense to me , how exactly is Michael Hayes a Legend of Wrestlemania? How does he make the game over guys like Tito Santana? Just food for thought.
Well, he was in that Gimmick Battle Royale…
So was the Gobbledy(Sp?) Gooker.
I would play the Gooker in a video game.