Before I get to the recap of the first Raw of 2010, I'd like fulfill the obligations of losing a bet by including a little poetic recap of the Year That Was for Monday Night Raw in 2009. Which you may want to skip if you hate that kind of stuff. The other day a friend was over and asked me to write something in about twenty minutes on the subject of Raw in 2009, so I spat this out pronto.
Posts Tagged ‘Freddie Blassie’
The Return of the Raw Recap, 1/04/10
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010Fuji
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009So this past weekend I was inspired by Captain Lou’s passing as well as some water cooler talk about “the best manager” to rent the WWE World’s Greatest Wrestling Managers DVD. I enjoyed the look back at the greats, it's a fun rental. However I was surprised that someone like Paul Heyman got a substantial amount of spotlight as a manager in the AWA whereas Mr. Fuji, who despite the inclusion of Fuji Vice in the extras, didn’t get much attention at all. He’s managed many champions and was a part of the WWF/E for many, many years.
Why do you think he got the snub?
Because he was a terrible manager, mainly I’d guess. Yeah, he was a great guy and decent worker and an easy source of heat, but it’s not like he was adding much to guys like Muraco or Demolition who could already talk for themselves just fine. There’s not really any highlight reel of catchphrases or great interviews from him to focus on, either, like you get with Jimmy Hart, Bobby Heenan or Freddie Blassie. He was really just a shorthand way for the promotion to establish that someone on the borderline of crowd reactions is DEFINITELY a heel. Like Berzerker, where people didn’t really know whether to cheer or boo the act, so they stuck Fuji with him randomly and people were like “Oh, it’s Fuji, let’s boo him.”
That being said, much love to him for his sense of humor and being around all those years, plus of course for Fuji Vice.
24/7 Review : The Big Event
Monday, August 24th, 2009WWF Big Event (Review by Brian Bayless)
8/28/86
Live from Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, ONT Canada with your announce team of Gorilla Monsoon, Ernie Ladd, and Johnny Valiant
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Tuesday Night Titans – The Final Episode
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Tuesday Night Titans - The Final Episode (September 24 1986)
- Just for fun, as TNT comes to a close on WWE 24/7 and gets replaced with Mid-Atlantic, let's hit the last episode ever and say goodbye to it.
- Hosted by Mean Gene and Lord Alfred.
- First guest: Jake Roberts. He and Gene are immediately trading dick jokes ("You wanna see the REAL snake? No scales, I promise.") and we go to a match from MSG between Jake and Ricky Steamboat. Now, I'm not the kind of guy to insinuate that a good, clean-living family man like Steamboat would take illegal performance-enhancing substances, but let's just say that he looks like he's been in the gym for two weeks straight. Jake continues his filthy, filthy interview ("Sometimes people just have to swallow it, and if they don't like the taste that's their problem!") and Gene's playing along and trading perverted barbs right back. You've gotta look this up on YouTube, it's something else for 1986. Apparently sometimes snakes will grow when you hold them. What the FUCK were these guys taking before the show?
- We take a break and return with audience questions for Jake. A guy wants to know when Jake's gonna put Ricky Steamboat out of his misery, and he draws a FACE POP for it! Jake notes that he'll smack Ricky around like a woman who's outlived her usefulness. Jake is just so laid-back and funny here, he's gotta be REALLY high. Crowd loves him and it's no wonder they turned him shortly after.
- Let us take you back to George Steele's electroshock therapy back in the day. Still a funny bit, with Steele turning intelligent long enough to say "How now brown cow?" before falling back into idiocy again. So this brings out Steele for more interesting conversation with Gene ("Have you seen Jake's snake, George?" "Captain eat.") and he fondles a WWF magazine with Elizabeth on the cover.
- Back from the break and Gene notes that George is in the men's room after seeing the magazine. Oh, going out with a filthy whimper, I see. Next guest: Freddie Blassie and SLICK~! Blassie introduces him as the half-owner of Sheik & Volkoff's contracts, and Gene asks if he's ever managed wrestlers before. Slick says yes. Gene asks if he's managed women before. Oh, TAG. This show is tremendous. So we get a clip of Hercules v. Tony Atlas and I didn't even know Atlas was still around at that point. I certainly don't remember him being on TV when I was watching the shows back in the day. Atlas suplexes Hercules into the ring, but Slick whacks him on the knee with the cane and Herc gets the pin. Blassie explains that he and Slick had a "go-between/come-between" and the place goes crazy. Were they all smoking the really good shit before the show or something?
- And now to really ramp up the insanity, we add Sheik & Volkoff to the show. Sheik notes that everyone in wrestling, from Hollywood to Rikidozan (!?) knows that he's the best. This show is a wonderful, wonderful trainwreck. We get Sheik & Volkoff v. Killer Bees from a house show, and this is so worth it if only for the announce table in the background, featuring monitors that appear to be 20" RCA cabinet TVs from 1971. That is GHETTO. Back to the interview, as Slick's banter isn't quite to the level of pimpdom it would achieve in later months, as he's just kind of talking like a normal person. Gene asks Sheik if Volkoff's ugly suit bothers him, and Sheik's like "Well, I'm sick and bothered by it myself, but it's the custom for the country." Everyone's having a rough time not cracking up completely here.
- Last break and now Nikolai brings out his pet -- a black bear cub. 300 million points to the WWF production crew, who put a graphic saying "Bear" on the screen, in case it wasn't clear. That confirms it, everyone was doing mushrooms, they had to be. Slick notes that the bear at least had the sense to be born black, which gets a big laugh. Gene and Blassie just unload on each other with zingers as everyone tries not to lose it. And of course Sheik gives us the poses one last time, and that's Tuesday Night Titans.
Well, they certainly let it all hang out for the last episode, I'll give them that. Look up the Jake portion on YouTube because it's hilariously filthy.
Monday Night RAW – October 13 1997
Monday, October 27th, 2008The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Monday Night RAW - October 13 1997
- It was a tossup between this and Supertowns on the Superstation, but the Monday Night Wars stuff gets more hits so let's do it.
- So Dungeon of Death is out next week, although it's apparently shipping early from Chapters here in Canada, and my publisher is looking for some widely read wrestling blogs to send review copies to. Being that I'm incredibly self-centered I don't tend to read many other wrestling sites, so I'm not sure about what some good choices would be, outside of stuff like Seth Mates' blog on Newsday.com. So if you've got suggestions, drop me an e-mail.
- Taped from Topeka, KS.
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for the Showdown at Shea
Sunday, October 19th, 2008The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Showdown At Shea Stadium (August 1980)
- This show is crazy rare, with only select matches having been aired on TV before this, but of course 24/7 is awesome so here it is in full.
- Taped from Queens, New York.
- Your hosts are Michael Cole & Mick Foley, since there was no commentary originally recorded. Vince McMahon does handle ring introductions, though.
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for MSG – January 23 1984
Thursday, June 5th, 2008The SmarK 24/7 Rant for MSG - January 23 1984
- Taped from New York, New York.
- Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon & Pat Patterson.
- So the main event of this show was Iron Sheik's first glorious title defense at MSG after beating Bob Backlund for the belt, but it's nothing major, just some punk from the AWA. I doubt you've even heard of him before.
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for WWF Tuesday Night Titans – April 9 1986
Sunday, April 13th, 2008The SmarK 24/7 Rant for WWF Tuesday Night Titans - April 9 1986
- Oh man, just reading the description of this one almost made me regret picking it, but it's like the proverbial trainwreck that you just can't look away from. I'm HOPING for "so bad it's good" out of it this week.
TNT Presents: Nikolai Volkoff, This Is Your Life!
- Hosted by Vince McMahon, of course.
- First guest is Classy Freddie Blassie, who complains about a lack of title shots for Nikolai. Next up, his "sister" Olga, which had to be a rib on him because they kept playing the voice and Volkoff had no clue who he was listening to. God help me, they're letting Nikolai Volkoff do improv. The payoff is his baby picture, which is his face pasted onto a baby's body. And then she turns on him and banishes him from the family while the poor guy has no clue how to react to this.
- Let us take you back to clips of Volkoff wrestling Swede Hanson in MSG.
- Randy Savage pays tribute in a quick soundbite.
- So back to your regularly scheduled trainwreck, as the next guest is his former coach (doing what sounds like a Jewish accent, although he's wearing a "CCCP" shirt) and this time they've clued Volkoff into the right name to say at least. But once again, his former friend turns on him, as he was not only Volkoff's gym teacher, but also his math teacher, and he apparently could never get Nikolai to learn that 2 + 2 = 4, or that you needed to count to three to win wrestling matches.
- Hey, another 20 seconds of the epic Swede Hanson match. It's like that Hogan v. Giant match on Nitro, where they're gonna stretch a 5:00 match out over an hour to make it seem like it's longer than it is. Volkoff thankfully finishes it with a botched backbreaker.
- Our next guest is a guy who thought he was on the dating game, and Vince fixes him up with Olga. With that winning gag out of the way (whew, good thing the level of sophistication is much higher these days! Oh, wait...) we bring out our next visitor, Nikolai's former girlfriend, who is all over him, but then remembers how bad he was in bed ("His idea of lovemaking was a headbutt and a bodyslam!") and goes off a pretty funny rant about what a lousy lover that he was.
- Next clips feature Sheik and Volkoff squashing Jose Luis Rivera and Paul Roma.
- King Kong Bundy admires Volkoff's forthright attitude.
- And now, Vince blows the LID off the Cold War by revealing Agent 36, a trenchcoat-clad spy from the KGB who exposes Nikolai as a sleeper agent for the Kremlin. And as usual, the praise quickly shifts to bashing Volkoff, who is so dumb that he doesn't even know the address of the President. See, because he lives in the White House, so only a very dumb spy wouldn't know that. Sorry, didn't mean to ruin the many layers of subtlety behind that joke.
- Iron Sheik is next, hopefully with a crazy rant in him to save this abomination. Vince asks him about being partnered with Nikolai, but Sheik turns it back into another extended discussion of how he used to be WWF champion before stopping for the posedown. Vince throws it to a match.
- The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff v. SD Jones & Jim Powers. Hey, Nikolai got to squash both halves of the Young Stallions in this show. Corporal Kirschner marches down with "Old Glory waving in the wind" according to Vince, because apparently there's wind in an indoor arena. Sheik is flustered and Powers is on the attack, but he puts his head down and Sheik crushes him with a backdrop suplex before Volkoff puts him down with the press backbreaker. Belly to belly by Sheik sets up the Camel Clutch to finish.
- Back to the Slammies, as Volkoff wins the award for Most Ignominious...because there was only one nominee. He's not happy about the win.
- One last match, as Volkoff faces George Steele in a mat classic.
- Jimmy Hart and Dory Funk Jr add their praises.
- And we finish with Magna changing her mind again and leaping back into his arms to give us the happy ending. Well, it's an ending, and that's also important.
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for MSG Show – March 16 1986
Sunday, March 9th, 2008- This would be the 1986 equivalent to the "go home" RAW before Wrestlemania.- Live from New York.- Your hosts are Gorilla & Jesse (more...)
The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Tuesday Night Titans – April 2 1986
Monday, February 25th, 2008The SmarK 24/7 Rant for Tuesday Night Titans - April 2 1986
- I'm really tired tonight but felt like ranting on something before bed, so I picked the show that requires the least thought and is also most likely to induce sleep. I only regret that Jay Strongbow's Hall of Fame spotlight was LAST month, because that would have done the trick for me. But this should do for now.
- Hosted by the "irrepressible" Vince McMahon, according to Lord Alfred.
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