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The Netcop Rant for the "Heroes of Wrestling",
a one-time-only (oh lord let that be true) so-called PPV that I wasted $19.95 on due to a
long story that I don't wanna get into. Thankfully, I made sure to stock up on
alcoholic beverages before the show, and BOY did I need them. - First of all, the pre-game
show looks like it was edited on a Video Toaster, with jump cuts so sudden that I think
some poor editor down in Mississippi is suffering from whiplash as we speak. We get
some various BAD angles to set up the show, including George Steele & Sherri Martell
getting caught in a secret tryst, Bob Orton cheating at poker, and Tully Blanchard getting
shoved into a trunk by Stan Lane. I don't know who I pity more, btw -- Sherri or
George. Not a promising start.
- Live from Bay Saint something, Mississippi. I
didn't quite catch the name of the town where the casino we're coming from is, and I
hadn't heard of it at any rate.
- Your hosts are
Dutch Mantell and some dufus named Randy Rosenbloom, not Gordon Solie as was triumphantly
advertised leading up to the show. He wouldn't make so much as an appearance.
- The arena is
announced as 2,000 SRO, but they're lucky if there's 600 people there, and the lights are
so dim you can only see the first five rows anyway. A big banner for the casino sits
on the ring apron, and I won't dignify it by reprinting the casino's phone number here.
- Opening match:
The Samoan Swat Team v. Marty Jannetty & Tommy Rogers. First of all, Fatu
looks like Yokozuna, with his ass taking up most of the camera whenever he's on.
Seriously, he's just that fat. And it's not like he's been retired for the past few
years or anything. The SST is managed by some Paul E. wannabe goof. Jannetty
(who is looking like a crack addict) has let his hair grow back since his WCW stint last
year. Stall session to start, with Jannetty taking control once Samu gets in.
Jannetty is blowing moves left and right and missing his cues, which would indicate
either drugs or alcohol tonight. Of course, had I known what was in store, I'd have
counted my blessings for Jannetty at least being coherant. Stay tuned, folks.
Lots of arm-working from the Fantastic Rockers, for lack of a better name. First
chinlock of the show comes at 8:15 EST. Expect more. Inevitably, Fabu's HUGE
ASS overcomes Marty and he plays Ricky Morton. Speaking of Ricky, the RnR would seem
to be a perfect fit for this show -- I wonder why they're not on it? Jannetty takes a
chairshot and the announcer declares it "obscene" and "unethical".
No shit. Where did they dig this dipshit up? Rogers gets the hot tag,
but tries to headbutt the Samoans and gets nowhere. Jannetty and Rogers double-team the
SST, with Jannetty hitting a plancha on Fatu, but that leaves Rogers alone with Samu.
Samu hits a pretty good TKO and gets the easy pin at 9:51. Nothing special
here. 1/2*
- Did I mention how
bad lead commentator Randy Rosenbloom is, calling a simple dropkick a "legdrop"
and other things equally ridiculous? Thank god Dutch was there to cover for him.
- Greg "The
Hammer" Valentine v. George "The Animal" Steele. George has Sherri with
him. It occurs to me that given the choices, George is smarter to eat the turnbuckle
than to eat.oh, never mind. George starts to remove his shirt, and Hammer jumps him.
Sherri attacks as well, thus throwing the subtlety card right out of the window.
But George can't see the betrayal, because the shirt is over his head. Plus
he's really stupid. Steele finds an international object and hits Greg with it, then
hands it off to Sherri for safe-keeping. Sherri hands it right to Greg, who plays
"Hide the object" for a bit, and then Sherri turns on George outright, nailing
him with a chair and giving Valentine the win at 6:31. Hey, our first negative star
match of the night! -***
- Julio Fantastico
(Sanchez) v. 2 Cold Scorpio. I have no idea why they even bothered with this one.
2CS has a WCW World title knockoff with him, which is never mentioned by the
announcers. Captain Lou Albano comes out to do rambling commentary. Decent,
but awkward wrestling sequence to start. Julio ends up on the floor and Scorp
follows with a pescado. Now it's Julio's turn, as he blows a pescado and ends with a
skin- the-cat type thing, then decides to REDO THE SPOT (Ugh!) and hits it better on the
second try. Sure sign of a jobber 4 life right there. NEVER REDO THE SPOT!
He does take a nice backdrop over the railing into the crowd. Back in the ring and
then a very ugly sequence begins, with the end result being a legdrop from Scorpio and a
badly blown Tumbleweed to finish it at 9:48. Hey, if you're gonna do a
spotfest, HIT THE DAMN SPOTS! *
- The Iron Sheik
& Nikolai Volkoff v. The Artists Formerly Known as the Bushwhackers. The heels
have some goof named Nikita Brezhnikov in their corner, who does a bad Russian accent and
wears what looks like a Cossack uniform and waves a USSR flag. Geez, read the news
once in a while, guys. We get the Russian national anthem (short form version) and
the Iranian club demonstration, for old (and I mean OLD) time's sake. Thankfully, I'm on
my third drink by this time and I'm getting pleasantly detached from the living room.
Ssssssssssssss tttttttttttt aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. The old, wrinkly, Volkoff beats on
Luke to control, although there's six inches of air between Luke and the bottom of
Nikolai's boot on every kick. Sheik comes in and gives Luke what can only be
generously described as a lovetap, and Luke sells a throat injury like Steamboat. Yeargh.
The heels are working so loose they might as well stand in the aisle and kick them
from there. It'd look more believable. Seriously, this is just SO sad. Butch
finally gets the hot tag, and heel miscommunication involving the wrong person getting hit
with an international object gives Butch the pin at 8:45. Oh. My. God.
-****
- Stan Lane v. Tully
Blanchard. Both guys look pretty good, age and layoff time considered. Pretty
nice start with Tully taking a bump into the post early, and Lane gets a neckbreaker and a
cobra clutch. Russian legsweep gets two. They hit the floor and Tully puts a
figure-four on him on the floor. Lane is playing the heel but Tully is drawing the
heel heat for some reason. Lane is also sporting the Chris Candido hairstyle.
Anyway, back in the ring and aftera brief bit involving a sleeper, we get the
stupidest ending in wrestling, the "belly-to- back suplex and one guy lifts his
shoulder" double pin. In this case, Tully gets the shoulder up first and wins at
7:12. Well, they tried, I guess. 1/2*
- Who in god's name
is booking this crap? I mean, the double pin spot? I know this is supposed to
be nostalgic, but let's at least get past 1985 in the booking, PLEASE! Do an nWo run-in
and get it up to 1997 or something.
- One Man Gang v.
Abdullah the Butcher. Both guys bleed. Both are counted out at 7:29.
There's your match highlights. Oh, those and Abby swiping the blade over his
forehead every five seconds with a camera focusing on his head. Almost forgot about
that one. -*** What's the point of doing a non-conclusive ending to a one-time- only
match? To protect the reputation of two semi- retired wrestlers?
- "Cowboy"
Bob Orton v. Jimmy Snuka. I'm on drink #4 by this point, so it's gonna be hard
to faze me. Snuka gets a quick two off a cross-body, but Orton takes control with a
cheapshot. A suplex into the ring and a kneedrop gets two. Orton is moving
slow, but he's pacing himself nicely and doing his usual great job of working the mat. He
works one armbar in particular for quite a long time. Dutch is doing an absolutely
spectacular job of selling the armbar for the fans at home, because Randy Rosenbloom has
no idea what the hell is going on, in terms of the psychology. The fans invent
increasingly crude taunts for Bob during the armbar, leading to the epic "Bob is a
faggot! (clap clap clap-clap-clap) in D- Minor" to close out the armbar.
Snuka comes back with the usual, and they do a double-KO with Orton falling
on top for two. Snuka recovers and heads to the top, but Orton tries to reverse to a
superplex. Lou Albano grabs Snuka's ankles to stop the move, and Snuka hits a
bodypress off the top for the pin at 11:42. Match of the night, at a whopping *1/4
- And now.THE FUN PART!
- During the night, the wrestlers have been cutting
various pre-match promos with some Pettingill-ish clone backstage, with nothing of note
being said. Then comes Jake Roberts. The promo itself was unexceptional.
No, what was so memorable was the fact that he was PLASTERED. I mean, he was
literally so stinking, falling- down drunk off his fat ass that he could hardly string
together a sentence, and in fact needed to grab onto the interviewer to keep from falling
over. The interviewer looked SERIOUSLY freaked at having Jake hanging on him, with
the snake crawling around in it's bag on the floor. And then the match.
- Jake "The
Snake" Roberts v. Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. PLEASE let it be quick, that's
all I ask. Jake is literally STAGGERING down the aisle on the way to the ring.
He tosses Damien into the corner, then staggers back to the dressing room, takes
his shirt off, and staggers back. Poor Neidhart has no idea what to make of the situation.
Jake hits on a couple of ugly chicks in the front row, then rolls in and we're underway.
Anvil literally does all the work, physically carrying Jake through the
"match" so he doesn't' fall over and puke all over the ring. Damien wriggles
free of the bag, so Jake pulls him out and makes uses it as a surrogate penis, waving it
around the ring while protuding from his crotch, pointing towards women in the front row.
And there's KIDS in the audience, all over the place. I think Jake can
finally kiss his wrestling career goodbye, for good this time. And now obviously
someone in the back realizes this is getting out of hand, so King Kong Bundy comes out to
run interference. Anvil puts Jake in a long chinlock, and looks to be bitching him
out while there. Jake goes for the DDT, but he can't get the spot quite right, so
Bundy runs in for a 2-on-1. Yokozuna makes the save, and it's turned into a tag
match. Jake takes a couple of chairshots from Neidhart to hopefully make him stay on
the floor, but he rolls back in and Bundy gets a two- count. Jake hasn't even
bothered to lace his boots, and when Neidhart pulls on his foot to stop a tag, the boot
comes free. Jake makes the hot tag to Yoko, but about 2 seconds later Bundy splashes
and pins Jake (the illegal man) for the pin to end the whole fiasco. Jake and Yoko
beat up Bundy's manager, and the show is hastily yanked from the air 15 minutes early
without so much as a goodbye from the announce team. And that, ladies and gentlemen,
is your Worst Match of the Year, hands down. -***** I suppose it would be harsh of
me to wish Jake would just choke on his own vomit one night and spare us all ever watching
him ruin his life or the lives of the people that care about him ever again, but at the
rate he's going he's probably not far off.
The Bottom Line: You may have noticed that we
didn't get the advertised main event, or even Yokozuna or Bundy wrestling for more than 5
seconds each. Leave it to Jake to ruin an entire show for everyone. Not that
there was much there to ruin. Easily the worst PPV I've ever seen, and that includes
a lot. I don't know how these morons got a PPV deal in the first place, but since
the buyrate is likely to be somewhere between 0.00000005 and 0.1 (if they're lucky) I
doubt we'll have to worry about seeing this abortion stink up our TV screens ever again.
If there was a rating even lower than thumbs down I'd
give it. If you want nostalgia, watch WCW. You might even see a wrestling match
there by accident, too. |