Burning Hammer DVD Review #8

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WG: No More Mr. Nice Guy
Compilation Tape

--Taped from various places

--Your hosts are Jim Cornette & Dave Meltzer

--Randy Savage (W/Angelo Poffo) V. Rick Rude (W/Jimmy Hart). This is from the CWA, in 1984. Mucho stalling to start, so much so that no contact between the two wrestlers is made until the three minute mark. Insanely long Airplane Spin by Savage, I'm dizzy just from watching it. Top-rope Crossbody by Savage, but King Kong Bundy interferes to hit Savage in the head with some kind of foreign object, which allows Rude to get the pin at 9:25. 3/4* Pretty pedestrian stuff, and it was obvious Savage was dumbing it down a lot so that the still green Rude could keep up with him.

--Sheik (W/Grand Wizard) V. Andre the Giant (W/Frank Vawoi). This is from the Toronto territory, in 1974. Andre beats the hell out of Sheik for a couple of minutes, then Sheik uses his patented fireball to the face, which keeps Andre down for the 10-count, Toronto still adhered to some boxing rules, and Sheik gets the win at 2:41. DUD This was a total squash, with Sheik getting the fluke win over Andre.

--Pampero Firpo V. Jeff Doney. This is from the Detroit territory, sometime in the late 70's. Firpo gets the pin at 1:38 with an Iron Claw. DUD Total squash match.

--Bruiser Brody, Scott Casey V. Kelly Kiniski, Spoiler. This is from SCW, in 1984. Kiniski is the son of former NWA Heavyweight Champion, Gene Kiniski. This would be the original Spoiler, Don Jardine, in this match. His major contribution to wrestling would be training a young Mark Callaway for a career in pro wrestling, and thus unleashed the eventual Undertaker on us all. I was initially grateful for this, but lately I've grown more and more resentful towards Jardine for making us suffer through Undertaker for these past 6-7 years. Brody gets the pin on Kiniski at 6:47 with a Kneedrop. 3/4* Another very pedestrian match.

--King Kong Bundy, Rick Rude V. Jerry Lawler, Randy Savage. From the CWA, in 1984. Lawler & Savage were bitter blood enemies for 5 years previous to this match, so they make for quite the odd pairing here. Savage again busts out an insane Airplane Spin. Bundy & Rude win by disqualification at 15:57 when Savage shoves down the referee. **1/2 Started off way too slow, but they managed to get a good match going near the end.

--Shark Cage Match: Jay Strongbow V. Don Kent. From the Detroit territory, in the late 70's. The Shark Cage match is quite possibly one of the stupidest concepts ever introduced to the world of pro wrestling, Cornette agrees with this assumption, and thinks it's so stupid that Vince Russo must have somehow traveled back in time and come up with the concept, that's how stupid it truly is. The idea is that a small shark cage, about the size of a phone booth, is placed in the middle of the ring, and both guys are locked into the cage and have to fight to escape, because first one to escape the cage wins. There's nothing more thrilling than watching two guys throw nothing but punches & kicks for an entire match because that's all that they can do with the limited space that the cage affords them. Strongbow wins the match at 6:46 when Mark Lewin comes down to the ring and attacks Kent through the cage, allowing Strongbow to escape without any problems. -**** No one, and I mean no one, should be forced to endure the pain that is this match.

--AWA International Championship Match: Austin Idol V. Randy Savage (W/Angelo Poffo). From the CWA, in 1984. Savage is all over Idol from the get-go. Savage is flying all over the ring, using all the speed that he would eventually lose due to his steroid use, and he's picking apart Idol at will. Savage pulls out a Running Top-Rope Necksnap, which is a move that Lance Storm has been using recently. Idol finally makes the comeback, and gets in such a rage that he beats the tar out of Savage from one end of the ring to the other. Idol Atomic Drop is blocked by Savage, who reverses to an Atomic Drop of his own, which Idol also blocks, and then uses a Legpick to set up a Figure Four Leglock for the submission win & title at 6:46. *** Fast paced match, where Idol took a royal shitkicking, only to counter with some fire of his own leading up to some good wrestling at the end. The ending sequence was especially SWEET~, it's so simple, yet effective, that I'm surprised no wrestler today has ever thought of using it.

--Inter-Species Match: Terrible Ted the Wrestling Bear V. Gene DuBois. From the New York territory, sometime in the early 60's. This is a match involving an actual bear, not just some dude in a bear suit. DuBois is the bears trainer, and he wrestles the bear, although the bear seems more interested in the referee than in Dubois. This is some surreal shit. Match is a no-contest at 5:29 when Ted pins the ref. DUD Although, everybody really needs to see a bear try to wrestle, it's just weird.

--AWA Southern Championship Match: Tommy Rich (W/Tojo Yamamoto) V. Rick Rude (W/Angel). From the CWA, in 1984. Another basic, nothing happening match until Rude completely fucks up a middle-rope Elbowdrop, slipping off the ropes and landing flat on his face. Rich wins the match and the title by pin at 5:58 after Jerry Lawler knocks out Rude with a chain. 1/4* Nothing much here, but Rude's fuck up on the middle-rope Elbowdrop is one of the most blatantly obvious botches I've ever seen.

--AWA Heavyweight Championship Match: Jerry Lawler V. Nick Bockwinkle. This is from the CWA, in 1983. These matches between Bockwinkle and Lawler for the AWA Heavyweight Championship were common in Memphis, with Lawler always coming out on the short end of the stick. Interestingly enough Lawler would finally capture the title from Curt Hennig in sometime around 1988. Really long mat sequence to start, with both guys fighting over a Top Wristlock. Crossbody by Lawler gets 2. Midway through the match, the match changes from a mat wrestling affair to an all out brawl. Lawler wins by disqualification at 12:15 aired after Bockwinkle accidentally punched the referee. ***1/2 There was a lot of clipping here, and it really hurt the match. Both guys still wrestled a good match, and they were able to slip from technical wrestling in the beginning to brawling at the end without missing a beat.

--AWA International Championship Match: Randy Savage (W/Angelo Poffo) V. Austin Idol. This is from the CWA, in 1984, and a rematch from their meeting earlier in the DVD. Top-rope Elbowdrop by Savage only gets 2, apparently he hadn't established it as a finisher yet. Idol cuts off a Savage top-rope Double Axehandle to the outside with a punch to the gut. They fight to the outside, where Savage nails Idol in the head with the title belt. Idol blades in response to the belt shot, which is something that Idol didn't do all that often. Middle-rope Elbowdrop by Idol, but he pulls Savage up at 2. That's never a good thing for a face to do, unless you're Undertaker, in which case you'll win the match no matter what, so it doesn't really matter. As expected, Savage wins the match and the title at 11:45 by pin after labeling Idol with a pair of brass knuckles. ***1/4 Another good match between these two, and they had really good intensity when in the ring with each other, which helped out a lot in their matches.

--Bobby Heenan (W/Blackjacks) V. Bob Ellis. From the WWA, sometime in the early 70's. Heenan comes to the ring on crutches, and asks for a slight postponement of the match, 5-6 months, due to a dehabilitating knee injury he suffered in preparation for this match. Once Ellis goes after Heenan the injury miraculously disappears however, and Heenan books out of the ring at warp speed. Ellis wins the match at 1:07 when Heenan gets counted out while arguing with the referee. DUD Not even a real match, but Heenan's antics in this match were hilarious, as most of his antics usually were.

--Final Flash: Combine 3 good matches on this DVD along with Terrible Ted the Wrestling Bear, which every wrestling fan needs to see, plus the commentary which was superb once again, and you have a very entertaining DVD.

Recommended.

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